How Quickly The Glamour Fades
by rubblerousing
Summary: Sequel to In Ivy And In Twine. Blaine, still ailed by something medically mysterious, convinces Kurt to move to New York with Rachel and not worry about leaving him behind. But once he's gone, Blaine feels like everything is wrong, and descends into sadness. He starts to believe the idea of soulmates is a hoax and that their relationship was nothing from the start, except doomed.
1. Chapter 1

"I have to go," Kurt said with his eyes closed, between kisses. "Before your parents come home."

"Mmhm," Blaine agreed, and rolled on top of him, straddling his hips.

Kurt laughed. "This is not the ideal… the… but… home…" Kurt mumbled, forgetting what he was trying to say while Blaine kissed him.

"Oh, I have something to show you," Blaine remembered, and pulled away from Kurt suddenly.

Kurt frowned. "Is it your naked body _this_ time?"

"No," Blaine smiled. "It's more paper." He grabbed a page from his desk and wiggled it in front of Kurt's face. "I've officially passed the 10th grade. Only two months late. I get to start 11th with everyone else."

Kurt grabbed it. "But we didn't actually study… like, at all."

"Obviously I'm just naturally intelligent."

Kurt dropped his head back onto Blaine's pillow. "I'm literally the worst summer tutor in the world. I think I forgot I was even supposed to be your tutor until just now. When did you do your homework?"

"Nights…" Blaine said, thinking. "Yeah, nights."

"But you're supposed to be sleeping! Regular sleep schedule, Blaine Anderson."

"Yeah, yeah," Blaine rolled off of Kurt. "I know." He laid down next to Kurt and took his arm, kissing the inside of his wrist.

"I have to go," Kurt said quietly.

"Then go," Blaine said, not letting go.

Kurt just sighed. "Remember prom night? I mean, after prom night, at my house?"

"Barely," Blaine joked.

"Do you want to do it again sometime? Or… like… more?"

"Yes, of course. But it's hard. We were… fairly reckless. We could have gotten caught. It was… an intense night that we dealt with in an intense way, and we got away with it, but I don't know how easy it would be to do again. And it's not just that… I keep thinking about what you said to me that night."

"I have no idea what I said to you."

"You said we might have rushed into dating, and we shouldn't rush into sex, because we could ruin our relationship. Our friendship. And you're right. I should have listened to you then."

"No, you shouldn't have."

"Kurt," Blaine laughed. "We have to consider logic _and_ our crazy insatiable lust for each other. You were being thoughtful. Anyway, I know you weren't ready then and maybe you aren't now. Maybe I'm not, either."

"But don't you want to just rip my clothes off, sometimes?"

"Yeah, most of the time. But that's what masturbation's for, right?" He grinned.

"But you shouldn't have to fantasize about me if I'm right here. And anyway…" he hesitated, and there was a dull noise somewhere in the distance. Kurt didn't pay attention to it but Blaine's eyes flicked to the window. "I _am_ ready now."

Blaine looked back to Kurt. "You are?"

"Whenever you are. I trust you."

Blaine felt like he was melting. He was nervous and ecstatic all at the same time. He barely opened his mouth to reply when he heard footsteps at the top of the stairs and a quick knock on his closed bedroom door.

He and Kurt jumped up from the bed. Kurt went to the window like he might jump out, but Blaine pulled him back. There was no way he was going to let Kurt jump two stories down. "Don't freak out," he whispered. Kurt was pale. "We're not doing anything wrong. We're doing homework."

Kurt nodded faintly.

"Blaine?" came a voice from the door. "It's Cooper."

Blaine sighed, exasperated. "What are you doing here? Don't come in."

"Why not?"

"I…" he faltered. "I'm with Kurt."

"Are you wearing clothes?"

He frowned. "Yes?"

Cooper threw the door open. "Hi, Kurt."

Kurt waved, but he still looked like he was going to faint. "Hi."

"What are you doing here?" Blaine asked again.

"I'm in town, do you mind? Am I not allowed to visit now?"

"I… just…" Blaine didn't know what to say.

"More importantly, Mom and Dad are going to be here in about five seconds," Cooper interrupted. There was another noise downstairs, the front door opening and closing. "There they are."

"Oh my God," Kurt whispered, growing paler.

"Don't worry, Blaine'll distract them, I'll take you to the back door." Cooper waved for Kurt to follow as he went back into the hallway.

Blaine squeezed Kurt's hand as he passed. "I'm going to ask them."

"You are? Are you sure?" Kurt stopped.

"No more worrying. I'm sure."

Kurt sighed. "Good luck."

Blaine gave him a quick kiss. "I love you."

"Love you," Kurt replied, and hurried after Cooper.

Blaine followed them down the stairs and then, instead of following them toward the back door, went into the living room where his father sat, studying a newspaper.

"Hey, Dad," he said, trying to sound blase.

"Hello," his father replied, in a tone that made it clear he was really asking, 'what do you want?' He lowered his newspaper.

Blaine sat on a sofa across from him. "Where's Mom?"

"Making dinner, I believe. Is Cooper here? I saw his car."

"He's… outside, making a call."

"Hm," his father replied, and lifted his newspaper back up to his eyes.

"Can I talk to you about something?" Blaine asked, shifting his legs nervously. "It's kind of important."

"Sure, Blaine," his father said, but never took his eyes from the paper.

"I want to transfer to McKinley."

His father sighed. "You're halfway through high school. You like Dalton. You have friends there. It's a far better program. You'll get into any college you want with a diploma from there. Why, other than Kurt, would you want to give that up?"

Blaine refused to be thrown by the question. "I want to feel like a normal teenager. I feel like I'm hiding at Dalton. I'm avoiding what I used to be afraid of, which is being judged and harassed. I want to stand up for myself. And I want to wear regular clothes again, live at home… maybe spend more time with you and Mom." He'd never planned on saying that before, but when it came out he was a little surprised to find it was true. Maybe their strained relationship was because they almost never spoke, because they were almost never in the same room together.

His father said nothing, thinking while he read.

"I do have friends at Dalton, but I have friends at McKinley, too. I'm friends with Kurt's friends."

"The same friends that helped put you in the hospital the last time," his father said. "What about college?"

"I'll still get good grades. I'll probably get better grades. I'm farther ahead than they are."

"And you should stay that way. You'll never get anywhere in life being mediocre."

"But I'll be happier."

"You don't know that." He paused. "You just want to see Kurt more often. You already see him every weekend, which is more than enough."

"What's wrong with wanting to see him more? He makes me happy."

"It's a bad idea."

"How is it a bad idea? He's moving to New York after graduation and we'll be apart for a whole year."

"I think you should be apart for a while. You're already too close." He paused to look at Blaine for a moment, delivering his verdict. "For me, it's not worth it. I'm not interested in transferring you. Dalton is the best school for you." The newspaper went back up.

Blaine waited, but he knew the conversation was over. He felt a little hopeless, but not completely. He had one more trick up his sleeve.

He went into the kitchen where his mother and Cooper were talking and helping each other make dinner. He crossed his arms over his stomach and leaned on the refrigerator.

"What's the matter with you?" Cooper asked, his mouth full of food.

"Mom," Blaine ignored him and looked at his mother. "I want to transfer to McKinley."

"What did your father say?" she asked, stirring a pot.

"He said no."

She sighed. "What about your future?"

"Kurt is my future."

"You still need to go to college and have a career."

"I will still go to college and have a career, Mom. I'm not _dropping out_ of school, I just want to _change_ schools. What if I try it for a year? Or a semester? If I go back to Dalton next year, as a senior, my diploma will still come from there." He had no intention of actually doing this, but it seemed like a good thing to say.

She thought about it for a while, silent. Finally she said, "I'll talk to your father about it later."

Blaine smiled and hugged her from the side. "Thank you."

"Spending every day with Kurt," Cooper mused. "Have you ever even gotten into a fight yet?" Cooper asked.

Blaine glared at him. "No. And maybe we never will. Maybe it's impossible, or something."

Cooper and their mother laughed.

"Why couldn't it be? We were made for each other, why would we ever fight? I mean, isn't that the point? We just get each other, we know how not to hurt each other."

Cooper rolled his eyes and left the room, crunching on a carrot. His mother shook her head, but said nothing. She just snickered.

"Mom," Blaine frowned at her.

She looked at him and sighed. "Well, honey… it's just… it's _very nice_ that you found your soulmate," she began, her tone verging on insincere, "but it doesn't mean… well, anything."

He blinked at her. "It doesn't mean _anything_?"

"No," she said simply, "not really. You know, one of the girls I work with has a cousin who met her soulmate. They got married in six months and were divorced before a year had passed. They don't speak anymore. They don't ever see each other."

"Well, that's…" Blaine tried to explain it away, but he didn't know how.

"If you ask me, it's all a big hoax. It's all based on your astrological chart, right? On the position of the stars based on where and when you were born."

"I guess."

"And how often is your horoscope completely wrong?"

"Yeah, if you go on Google and check your horoscope, it can be wrong. But there are people who can read into the charts and… and it's really much more complex than…" he didn't know what he was saying.

"It's all vague. It's all only a possibility. It's a possibility you'd have a great relationship with thousands of people in the world, you could say, not just one person. My point is, dear, when people meet their soulmates they think they've got it easy after that. They think, like you think, that nothing can possibly go wrong. They get too comfortable. And that's how relationships get ruined."

"So you think we should be uncomfortable?" Blaine asked.

"I think you should be aware your relationship is not invincible, if you want it to last. Not that I…" she trailed off.

"Not that you what?"

"Not that I mind if it lasts or not. I understand how much he means to you, how much you think he means to you. But I happen to agree with your father that Kurt's not exactly a good influence on you."

Blaine bit his tongue and concentrated on not yelling at her. He just stood still and turned red and stayed silent.

"But I do want you to make your own decisions. And making mistakes is how we grow as human beings. If you want to make the mistake of compromising your education for puppy love, I think you should. I just hope you realize you've done the wrong thing before senior year. But, I guess," she turned to him and smiled, "we'll worry about that next year."

Blaine stared at her for a while, speechless. All he could finally say was a terse, "Thank you," before he stomped back to his bedroom and tried not to slam the door.

But despite her intentions, his mother almost always won over his father. He'd gone to her to change his mind since he was a child, since he used her to get toys or video games. Barely a week had passed before his father wordlessly dropped paperwork in front of him one night at dinner, transfer papers Blaine was to fill out, that his father had already signed.

All he had left to do was tell his friends at Dalton. His heart raced as he dialed Nick's number. But he calmed a little as they exchanged pleasantries. Of course the Dalton boys would understand. They had even spent a little time with Kurt, which was more than his parents could say for themselves. They knew how in love Blaine was with him. They knew they couldn't, shouldn't be separated.

"What would you say if I told you I wasn't coming back to Dalton this year?" Blaine asked finally, taking a deep breath first to work up the courage.

"I'd say absolutely not," Nick answered. "Is your dad still trying to send you to that boarding school in Switzerland?"

"No, no," Blaine said. "Not since 9th grade. It… it was my idea. I think I'm going to transfer to McKinley, to be with Kurt." There was no thinking about it, it was happening. The ink was dry on the paper. But it seemed nicer to put it that way. He didn't want to admit that he'd made the decision without consulting his Dalton friends at all, not even to himself.

"Oh," Nick said, was silent, and then said, "oh," again.

"I know," Blaine closed his eyes, embarrassed. "I wish we could all be together at one school…"

"Kurt doesn't want to come to Dalton? We could use his voice."

"Kurt can't really afford to go to Dalton, and all his friends are at McKinley. He's comfortable there."

"But all your friends are at Dalton, and you're comfortable there."

"I know, but…" Once again, he was speechless. Apparently he couldn't rationalize it to anyone.

"Well, if his parents can't afford it, I can understand. My parents can hardly afford it either. They really wanted me to graduate a year early. Cheaper."

Blaine picked at a hangnail on his thumb. "I'm sorry, Nick. I am going to miss you. All of the Warblers."

"We'll miss you, too, Blaine."

"But you're not getting rid of me that easily," he tried to smile. "We'll still hang out. All the time. Every weekend. And I'd be happy to rejoin the Warblers at any off-campus, unofficial performances. As long as you'll have me."

"We'd be happy to have you. But, Blaine?"

"Yeah?"

"What if we lose touch with you? I'm sure you'll make new friends. You'll be too busy every weekend to drive all the way out here."

"Not true," Blaine promised. "It's not going to happen."

"Are you sure?"

"One hundred percent."

"Well, Kurt must be happy about this."

"I actually haven't told him yet. I mean, he knows I want to transfer, but I haven't officially told him that I am, yet."

"You haven't told me, either. So it's official?"

Blaine's shoulders slumped. "It's official."

"I guess all I can say is congratulations."

Blaine smiled a sad smile. "Thanks."

They didn't speak for much longer before they hung up. It was hard to talk when Blaine felt like they were just trying not to say goodbye, forever, instead. He couldn't shake the feeling he might be doing the wrong thing, but he steadfastly ignored it. He tried to imagine the look on Kurt's face when he showed up to McKinley on the first day of school, and knew that it would make the sadness between he and Nick worth it after all.


	2. Chapter 2

Blaine pretended to whine about going back to Dalton all week, and even brought out some luggage from his closet to fool Kurt when he visited. Together they lamented the end of summer, the beginning of weekend-only visits. Blaine somehow kept a straight face through the whole thing.

On the first day of school he ran into most of the glee club before he found Kurt, and had to bribe them all in various small ways not to say anything to Kurt before he did.

He finally found Kurt at his locker, engrossed in conversation with Mercedes. Mercedes saw him first, her eyes going wide at the sight of him. Blaine put a finger to his lips to indicate she say nothing, so she quickly affected normalcy, and Kurt somehow didn't notice. She ended the conversation as fast as she could, and ran away, while Blaine stood smiling behind Kurt, out of his line of vision.

Kurt gave Mercedes a confused look as she rushed away, and turned back to his locker to pick out the relevant books.

Blaine stepped forward and tapped him on the shoulder. "Excuse me," he said, "I'm new here, can you help me find room 3C?" But he barely had all the words out before Kurt flung around, was shocked, and jumped on him with a hug.

"What are you doing here?" Kurt practically cried. "What… why… I thought your parents weren't going to let you transfer!"

Blaine smiled and hugged him back, tight. "Do you treat all the new kids so welcomingly? I might get jealous next time."

"Blaine!" Kurt yelled, and pulled back just a little, to look into his eyes. But then he remembered where they were, and who they were surrounded by, and he jumped back. "We can't… do anything… here."

"I know," Blaine nodded. "I just want to see you."

Kurt smiled. "I just want to see you, too."

"Walk me to class, at least."

While they walked Kurt looked down at his boots. "I'm starting to regret this, a little bit. It's just… what if someone says something, or does something, to hurt you?"

"I can take care of myself," Blaine answered, and nudged him with his elbow.

Kurt smiled at him. "I know you can."

"I'll be fine. And anything is worth it, to spend more time with you."

Kurt sighed, happy. They arrived at Blaine's classroom. Kurt lingered in the hallway. Blaine leaned against the doorframe and waited for him to talk.

"I hope it is worth it," Kurt said quietly, and then even quieter, "I love you."

"I love you, too," Blaine whispered back.

Kurt backed up. "Are you joining glee club?" he asked as people passed between them, oblivious to everything.

"Of course!"

Later, at glee, Kurt introduced him as the greatest singer of all time, and Blaine sang an inaugural song, which most people seemed to approve of. That was the only class they had together, the only one where they could sit together and hold hands and whisper things to each other and laugh, and it was then that Blaine was sure leaving Dalton was worth it.

Later that night, at home, Blaine received a text from Nick. "Missed you today," it said. "How's your new life?"

While Blaine was thinking of a good way to answer, and feeling a little guilty, his father knocked and entered his room.

"How was your first day of public high school?" he asked.

"It was good," Blaine nodded.

"Was the work easy?"

"I was a little confused, actually, just because everything is new to me. But I'll catch up."

"You'd better catch up quickly. And don't spend all your time with… your new friends. I'm expecting you to keep straight As while you're there. One slip up, and I'm putting you back in Dalton."

"I understand. I will."

His father lingered for a moment, like he was taking time to think of what to say next. "I hope you also understand," he began, "how hard I'm trying to be supportive of your… relationship with Kurt."

Blaine raised his eyebrows, not really expecting anything like this to ever come from his father's mouth. "I… I am," he said. "I know you let him visit me at the hospital every day."

He nodded. "Cooper thought he would help you recover sooner."

"I know he did," Blaine said.

"But I'm not so sure. In fact, I think it's more like, Kurt was the reason you ended up in the hospital."

"But—"

His father put up a hand, indicating Blaine shouldn't argue with him. "I know how you feel. I know you'll always defend him. You have to try to look at it from my point of view. Anyway, I know we've fought about… this subject in the past. I want you to know I'm not ignorant, or hateful, I just… want what's best for you."

"I know," Blaine said. "Thank you."

His father nodded. "And I'll be glad when it's over," he said finally, quietly, and with that, left the room.

Blaine's shoulders slumped. It didn't seem like anyone thought he had made the right decision. He wasn't even sure Kurt was completely happy about it.

Time passed. He began to get used to McKinley. The New Directions seemed to accept him eventually, aided by the fact that he tried to always keep a smile on his face. Then the time came for the school to put on a musical, and everything seemed to go crazy. He and Kurt had their first fight, however mild and passive aggressive it turned out to be. Kurt wanted the lead and everyone knew that, Blaine most of all. And Kurt auditioned, and everyone made fun of him, which really hurt him, and Blaine knew that better than anyone. But he couldn't help but think maybe getting the lead himself would make the rest of the club respect him more, a lot more, and he couldn't let it go. He auditioned for a small part but was offered the lead, and he didn't know what to say when it happened. He knew he should say no. He knew he should refuse to be in the musical in any capacity, after the way they had treated Kurt. But he paused, and said nothing for a moment, and then Kurt's voice came out of the rafters like magic and said Blaine would take it.

"You will?" Artie, Miss Pillsbury, and Coach Beiste looked at him with stars in their eyes.

He looked up to Kurt, who nodded vigorously. "… Sure," he said finally, but he knew he shouldn't have.

And then it was too late. Kurt pretended to be too busy to talk to him the rest of the day. He had flashbacks of his mother and Cooper laughing at him when he said maybe he and Kurt would never fight. And when Kurt wouldn't answer his phone or reply to his texts he remembered his father saying he'd be glad when the relationship was over.

So he pushed extra hard to get Kurt to like him again, the way he did before Blaine had sort of, maybe, stabbed him in the back. He wanted to take their relationship to the next level, to be sure Kurt was hooked and couldn't back out. Which was the wrong logic to have, but Blaine wasn't perfect. Besides, Artie kept telling him he needed to sleep with Kurt.

So they went to that awful bar, and Karofsky was there, which made Blaine upset, and Sebastian was there, which made Kurt upset, and things just kept getting worse, but Blaine didn't notice because he was drinking.

Kurt forced him by pain of death to only have one drink, so that what happened at Puck's party didn't make a recurrence, and Blaine obliged, loyally. But it didn't matter. One stupid drink kind of made him drunk. Then he really pushed himself on Kurt, in the backseat of his car, of all places, and things really went to hell. It all led up to his opening night as Tony, where he was so upset and felt so guilty that he didn't do a good job anyway, and didn't feel like he even deserved the part in the first place.

But Kurt, who was always so sweet and perfect and always knew the right things to do and say, came up to him afterward and told him he'd been amazing, and forgave him for everything, which was more than noble of him. And then he said he wanted them to forgo the afterparty, because he wanted to go to Blaine's house, which implied a lot because they both knew his parents were out of town again.

And then Blaine's brain really turned off, and he was thankful every day afterward that he managed not to do anything to ruin their first time together.

They didn't speak during the drive home from the auditorium. Kurt just sat sideways in the passenger seat and looked at him with a gaze that was so loving and trusting that it made Blaine's heart stop to look back, so he did the right thing and kept his eyes on the road.

He tried to kiss Kurt all the way from the driveway to his bedroom but sometimes they had to stop to open and unlock doors, and sometimes they had to actually speak.

"Kurt," Blaine said somewhere on the stairs, "we have to talk about what we want."

"Everything," Kurt answered.

"I know," Blaine smiled and kissed him again. "But, I mean, who—"

"You," Kurt breathed, interrupting him. "You on top. This time."

Blaine immediately agreed. It didn't really matter to him what Kurt would have said, he would have immediately agreed to anything.

"Blaine," Kurt said when they got to his bedroom door. "Do you have… like… stuff?"

"Yes, I have stuff," Blaine smiled. "I have condoms and lubrication, if that's what you mean."

Kurt pulled away from the kiss and took a small step back. "_Why_?"

"Um," Blaine said. "For a moment such as this."

"When did you get it?"

"The day after we met."

Kurt rolled his eyes. "That joke doesn't work, you were still in the hospital the day after we met."

"Fine, like, a month ago?"

"But, you didn't have it already, did you? Because… because…" Kurt turned red and obviously didn't want to finish the sentence. But Blaine knew what he meant.

"No! I bought it after what happened on prom night, so that in case anything happened suddenly again, and we wanted it to go further, we wouldn't have to stop and ruin the moment by running to the drugstore. Kurt," he sighed, and took his hand. "I promise I've never been with anyone else in nearly an intimate situation as we've already been in. I've told you everything I've ever done. Everything," he reiterated, making sure Kurt was looking at him and listening to him. "I kissed someone, like, twice, before I met you. I promise, that's it."

Kurt took a deep breath and exhaled slowly, shaking off doubts and nerves. Blaine did it, too. It kind of worked. They laughed at how silly they were being, and Kurt kissed him again, wrapping his arms around Blaine. He pulled Blaine into the bedroom and shut the door behind them. No one was going to be home for days, but it was comforting to have a semblance of privacy.

"Leave the light off," Kurt whispered onto Blaine's lips.

"Should I put on some music?"

"No," Kurt breathed, and Blaine was pleased. It seemed a little dirtier and sexier to be able to hear every last noise they might draw from each other that night.

Kurt slipped off his shoes and pulled Blaine's shirt up over his head at the same time.

"Are you sure about this?" Blaine asked, trying not to topple over while he seemed to have a more difficult time getting his shoes off. "We don't have to—"

"Shh," Kurt kissed him.

"We can still work up to it," Blaine mumbled against him. "We have all the time in the world."

"Promise that's the last time you'll ask?"

Blaine pulled back far enough to look properly into Kurt's eyes. "I promise it's the last time I'll ask."

Kurt smiled. He was already blushing, visible even in the pale streetlight coming through the blinds on his window. He looked shyly to the floor and sat down on the edge of the bed. He took Blaine's hand and looked up at him again. "Good," was his answer. He pulled Blaine closer and kissed him again. Before Blaine could demand a real answer to his question he was distracted by the fact that Kurt was lying back on the bed and pulling him on top, and he couldn't form any more coherent thoughts.

They awkwardly undressed each other, leaning on one knee or balancing on an elbow, until their bodies were flush against each other, with nothing in between.

"I guess we should have done all of that standing up," Kurt laughed.

Blaine kissed his blushing cheeks and willed him wordlessly not to ever be embarrassed around him. "We're figuring it out. Let's take comfort in the fact that we'll never be as bad at this again as we are now."

Kurt seemed to relax a little at the thought. "Some day you'll be able to waltz in and sweep me off my feet, and carry me to our bedroom, and we'll know exactly what to do. We won't have to say anything."

"We'll know each other perfectly. It just takes a little practice."

Kurt wiggled a little below him, hesitating for a moment before putting a hand on Blaine's cheek and whispering, "I love you."

They'd said it to each other dozens of times before, but this time felt somehow much more real. Realer even than the first time they'd said it. Blaine inhaled a shaky breath and tried to steady his voice before he answered. "I love you, too, Kurt Hummel."

He smiled. "Ready?"

"Ready," Blaine nodded. He reached into the back corner of the bottom drawer of his bedside table, feeling for what he wanted underneath all the junk he could think of to pile on top of it to hide it.

"We don't really need a condom," Kurt whispered.

"I know," Blaine said, still reaching, and felt himself blush. "I just… thought… if it'd make you feel better, or… more… content…"

Kurt shook his head. "No."

As soon as Blaine's hand emerged from the drawer with the small bottle of lubrication, Kurt reached out and grabbed it for himself.

"Poor baby," Kurt grinned and popped the lid open. He squeezed some onto Blaine's fingers and interlaced his own between them. "You had to go buy sex things all by yourself."

"Well, you—" Blaine replied, but his voice hitched when Kurt bent his knees up on either side of Blaine's waist and their erections brushed together. He was suddenly acutely aware that Kurt was all spread out and completely exposed beneath him, was waiting for Blaine to touch him intimately and bring him to orgasm, and he could hardly remember what he was going to say. It came out rushed and slurred when he tried again. "You wouldn't've gone with me anyway."

"I wouldn't've gone with you," Kurt agreed. "I will, though, some day."

Blaine mumbled an incoherent agreement while Kurt took his hand, which he was too afraid to move by himself from up by their shoulders, down between their waists. He let go when Blaine's fingers found the courage to wrap around his length, and Kurt's eyes closed with delight. But he only allowed for a few seconds of stroking before he wiggled down farther, bringing his hips up, so that Blaine's hand moved farther down.

"You must have done some research," Blaine managed to say. He'd expected to have to explain everything to Kurt and half expected Kurt to freak out and run away, their first time, but apparently Kurt knew what was supposed to be happening.

"I told you I did," Kurt kissed him. Blaine remembered the conversation, which was more like a quick, sort of random confession Kurt had whispered to him over the phone one night, and it had gone out of Blaine's mind again when, two seconds later, his father demanded he get off the phone. He forgot to mention it again. It was too hard to randomly bring up porn when they were constantly surrounded by ten friends, or parents and siblings, or whatever. They were almost never alone. They almost never got to have private conversations. That was why Blaine was so enjoying having the house to himself that weekend. He could almost pretend they were adults, living together, alone, who could say or do anything at any time without consequences. If Kurt wasn't spread open naked beneath him right at that moment, he might have had a voyeuristic moment and turned on all the lights and opened all the doors and windows in the whole house, just because he could.

"I'm sorry," was what he said instead. He meant he was sorry he'd forgotten to talk to Kurt about it again after Kurt tried the first time, but it was possible Kurt construed it as apologizing for what he was doing at that moment, because Blaine slid the first finger inside of him then. He did it slowly, and watched and felt for Kurt to respond negatively, to frown or tense up or anything, but he seemed to be fine. He just took Blaine's free hand and held onto it tightly.

"Don't apologize," he said. "And keep going."

Blaine consented, even slower this time, because there was obvious and tangible resistance to two fingers that he didn't really want to fight. He wanted to watch Kurt's face, because he knew Kurt would lie and say he was fine even if he wasn't, but Kurt wouldn't let him pull away far enough to let him see. He hooked an arm around Blaine's neck and kept their forehead and noses and lips together constantly. But Blaine could feel Kurt's stomach muscles clenching, and it took Kurt's kisses, the way he squeezed his hand, the way he held Blaine in place with his thighs, to not pull his fingers out and run to the other side of the room and insist they never try it again, because he never wanted to hurt him. Instead he froze, deciding a little time was the cure to mostly everything, and pleaded with Kurt to remember to relax. Even if he had to force himself to.

It seemed to work; after a little while Kurt loosened up, letting his arms fall to his sides and settling back deeper into the mattress. He kept his eyes closed. There was a little more room for Blaine's fingers to move then, but he didn't dare to, yet.

"Are you okay?" Blaine asked nervously. Kurt had even stopped kissing him. He just kind of laid there, eyes closed, unmoving.

"I'm fine," Kurt answered, and sounded genuine. "I'm relaxed." He reached out and blindly grasped for Blaine's free hand, which he caught eventually, and squeezed it once, reassuringly. He intertwined their fingers together, and hooked his ankles over Blaine's. He was still trying to hold him in place.

"I'm not going anywhere," Blaine whispered to him, leaning forward to kiss him again. "I'm here."

He waited, and finally Kurt said again, "Keep going."

Hesitantly, Blaine moved his fingers millimeters at a time. Now he was the only tense one, ready to pull his hand back as quickly as if he'd touched fire as soon as Kurt told him to stop. But Kurt didn't tell him to stop.

He moved his fingers back and forth at first, and then, as slowly as he could manage, pushed them in as far as the would go, until his fingertips barely grazed something inside Kurt that made him gasp and squirm a little. Blaine was ready then to jump back and stop everything, but Kurt was too fast. He grabbed Blaine's wrist between them and held it still. "Don't," he whispered, knowing what Blaine was thinking. "Keep going."

Blaine exhaled a shaking breath he didn't know he'd been holding and felt light headed for a moment. He was the one who needed to relax now. It was actually possible, he told himself, that Kurt liked what he was doing and wasn't considering it torture.

He tried the same spot again, as lightly as last time. Kurt bit his bottom lip and let go of Blaine's hand. He reached down and wrapped his fingers around Blaine's erection, stroking him slowly. The attention made Blaine's heart race, and his fingers shook a little, so the next time he touched Kurt in just the right spot he hit it harder than he intended. In response Kurt let out a loud moan, and wiggled beneath him more than ever, so that Blaine almost lost his balance and fell on him.

"Okay," Kurt said, his eyes open now. "Okay, okay," he said. He pulled Blaine's wrist, so his fingers came out, and grabbed for the bottle of lube that had fallen to the floor. "Okay," he said again, apparently all he could say, and squeezed a generous amount of it into his hand, which promptly went back to Blaine, spreading it over his length.

"Okay," Blaine agreed, trying not to have a heart attack.

"Okay," Kurt said, lying down again. "Just… okay." He pulled Blaine forward, kissing him deeply. He had Blaine between his thighs again, his feet in the air.

"Okay," Blaine mumbled into Kurt's lips, and decided it was probably time to go for it, and that Kurt was probably giving him permission. He reached down to guide his body to the right place, but Kurt had positioned them both in such a way that the tip of his penis had slid into Kurt before he really knew he had done it. And by the time he realized it, Kurt was already saying, "Keep going."

Or maybe, Blaine thought, his body remembered his soulmate's' body, and finding his way inside of Kurt was as easy and familiar as finding his way home. He pushed deeper slowly and gently still, but with more confidence than he'd done with his fingers. Kurt had substituted "okay" for "yes," and that was a wonderfully encouraging word for Blaine to hear, over and over again.

"Are you still okay?" he asked Kurt, but instead of freezing in terror he made a few gentle rolls of his hips, pushing steadier into him, feeling that what he was doing was right and good for the first time all night.

"Yes," Kurt said for the twentieth time. He had his eyes closed again, and his mouth open. Blaine kissed his cheeks again, which were happily less red than they'd been before, and then his nose and eyelids, still rolling deeper and deeper into him.

"Say something else," Blaine smiled at the sight of him coming a little undone beneath him.

Before Kurt could answer Blaine had pressed in as far as he could go, and the head of his penis hit his prostate for the first time. All Kurt could do was moan again, and then mumbled something into a hand he placed over his mouth.

Blaine laughed and pulled Kurt's hand away. "What?"

"I'm trying not to say f—" Kurt said, and Blaine pushed into him again, harder. "_Fuck_."

"You can say fuck," Blaine grinned, and kissed down his neck to his collarbones. He reached down to Kurt's erection and stroked him in time, paying special attention to the head, which Kurt seemed to respond positively to, by more whispered "fucks." Kurt's thighs and fingers trembled. "Say something else," Blaine teased.

"You _have_ to try this sometime," was Kurt's answer, and they both laughed.

Blaine's kisses made their way back up to his ear, where he whispered, "Kurt."

"Blaine?" Kurt asked.

"Kurt," he said again, in time to a stroke of his hands, in time to hitting his prostate.

"Blaine," Kurt said back, trembling harder.

They repeated their mantras for a short time before they orgasmed together, at almost exactly the same time. Blaine made a far away mental note to think about working on stamina, one day, but didn't really care just then.

Kurt clung tightly to Blaine as he came, and didn't want to let go even after the orgasm passed. He didn't even want Blaine to pull out of him. He just shook and held Blaine in place, his nails digging hard into Blaine's back.

Blaine had to pet him and promise everything would be okay a few times before Kurt let him pull out. Kurt frowned deeply when it happened.

"I'm sorry," Blaine whispered, sorry that they couldn't just be one person, constantly making love.

"I love you," Kurt answered.

Blaine snuggled close to him, so their noses touched. "I love you, too."

They stayed still and quiet for a while, watching each other, waiting for real life to kick back in, but not necessarily hoping it would ever happen. Blaine could feel a psychological blanket settle over all of his senses; he probably never wanted to sleep more in his life, but he fought tooth and nail against falling asleep. He refused to stop looking at Kurt, to stop holding him, to stop being cognizant of him. It felt like leaving him behind.

Eventually Kurt gave him a little, smug smirk. "I know you're tired."

"Hmm mm," Blaine replied, and tried to shake his head, but it was difficult to accomplish with his head on a pillow. "Should I take you home?"

"No. Why would you do that? I'm at a sleepover at Mercedes'."

"Oh, I forgot," Blaine smiled at him.

Kurt kissed close to his eyes until he closed them, and then kissed his lids. "Go to sleep," he whispered.

Blaine wound his arms and legs tight around Kurt, hoping he wouldn't let go when he lost consciousness. "If you insist."


	3. Chapter 3

After Blaine and Kurt's relationship became intimate, Blaine felt so much closer to Kurt in every imaginable way that he never expected Kurt to start to distance himself from him. He supposed, later, that it was because he didn't expect it to happen that it affected him so much when it did. And once things started on a slow descent downhill, it seemed like nothing could stop it from inevitably, violently, crashing to a halt.

Sometimes he thought it was his own fault, because he told Kurt to go to New York. Kurt didn't want to, at first. Well, he always _wanted_ to, but he also didn't want to leave Blaine. He told him so one night while they pretended to study in Blaine's room and tried not to count down the minutes until his parents made him leave. Sunset. They always made him leave at sunset, like they were certain teenagers developed an insatiable lust for one another only once nighttime came.

"I'm not going to New York," Kurt had said that afternoon. "Not without you."

Blaine said he should, he had to. "It's just one year," he said, and Kurt just shook his head stubbornly and frowned at the page of homework they hadn't thought about for an instant since he'd gotten there and pulled it out of his bag.

So Blaine tried a different approach. He told him just to apply to NYADA, like Rachel already had, just to see if he'd get in. And if he did, if he really wanted to, maybe he could defer for a year. Blaine had absolutely no intention of letting him defer for a year, to stay behind while he finished high school. That was ridiculous. Kurt was amazing and beautiful and more talented than anyone else in the world. He couldn't stay back in Lima, and work part time retail, and help Blaine with his homework, if he could be starting the career Blaine knew Kurt couldn't live without. For whatever reason, Blaine was sure they'd be fine if they had to be separated for a year. He had no hesitation about it, that day, whatsoever.

And Kurt finally agreed with him. "Fine," he said. "I'll apply."

And with that, their relationship slipped downhill a little farther, without either of them knowing it.

The mere process of applying to NYADA seemed to make Kurt giddy with the idea of moving, which was good and oddly sad at the same time. Blaine kept telling himself this was a good thing, it was what they both wanted for Kurt, but his heart kept aching every time Kurt's eyes glazed over and he randomly interrupted whatever Blaine was saying with a certain amazing boutique Kurt just had to check out when he was in New York.

At first Blaine told himself, or bitterly admitted to himself, that he was jealous. But he doubted anyone could blame him. It was basically unfair that he had to be a year younger that Kurt, that Kurt was going to escape midwestern conservative hell and do and see everything a cultured and educated person could ever hope to do and see. Instead of relying solely on Blaine and Rachel, Kurt would instantaneously be surrounded by people who loved the things he loved, who would accept him unconditionally.

And it was the very day that Blaine was sure Kurt was going to forget about him the instant he got to New York, soulmates be damned, that Blaine found out about Chandler.

Well, he didn't find out everything about Chandler all in one day, but he knew Kurt had met someone who obviously delighted him in a way that, lately, only the thought of New York could delight him. It made Blaine feel ten times more dull to Kurt than he usually felt, which was already substantially dull. At first Blaine was sure he was just joke-texting someone in glee club, but then Kurt was texting _in_ glee club, and no one in the room was replying, so the theory was dashed.

And when Blaine finally found the courage to ask in a perfectly executed, nonchalant tone who Kurt was texting, and Kurt said "no one," that he actually, physically felt their relationship fall off a cliff. Maybe it was a little cliff in the grand scheme of things, but never before that moment had Blaine ever thought he and Kurt would break up. Ever.

He remembered again Cooper and his mother laughing at how he and Kurt never had problems. He remembered his father saying he couldn't wait until their relationship was over. Was it possible they knew better than he did? How could he be so stupid, he wondered, and couldn't stop obsessively wondering it until he blew up at Kurt, sang a melodramatic song to him, and then made them go to counseling.

Tears were shed and promises were made. Kurt vowed never to text Chandler again, which wasn't really what Blaine wanted, but he wasn't brave enough to say so. Blaine didn't want to be the boyfriend who dictated which friends his significant other could keep, but apparently he'd turned into that boyfriend. And even though things with Kurt seemed to get better, he still felt, somewhere inside himself, as bad as he did since he told Kurt he could, and should, move away. He wasn't mad at Kurt for anything. He was mad at himself.

Eventually he realized he was obsessing, or obsessively waiting for the day Kurt left and he was alone, so he could wallow and rock back in forth in his room for a year, and it was a future for himself he really didn't want. So he remembered the Warblers. He always remembered the Warblers, but he remembered there had been a time that they constantly talked. Even for a while after Blaine transferred he could call any of them, at any time, about anything, and he realized then that he hadn't spoken to any of them for a couple of months.

He texted quite a few of them in quick succession, even those who had graduated. Wes, David, Thad, Nick, Jeff, Trent; he sent an individual message to all of them. Asked after their parents and siblings and girlfriends, remembering the names of all of them. Asked about school, or college, or whatever each one was doing. Talked about himself, a little bit, at least the good parts. Told every one of them he missed them, and Dalton too, which was true.

A week passed and not one of them had replied. Twelve days passed and he came out of French class to find a missed voicemail. It was Nick, who said in few words that he'd call back later. Fifteen days passed and he never did, and Blaine couldn't get him to answer his phone, either.

Three weeks after he sent the texts, with no real progress to speak of, he was frowning into his locker when Kurt ran up to him and stuck an envelope into his line of sight. It was his acceptance letter. Or his rejection letter. But Blaine was sure he'd been accepted.

"Come on," Kurt took his hand. "Rachel and I are opening our letters together in the choir room. I want you to be there with me."

Blaine let himself be led, feeling a little like his world was crashing down around him. "What about Finn?" he asked, without actually caring about the answer.

"We're not speaking to him right now," Kurt looked back at him. "He broke up with Rachel. Don't mention him or she'll burst into tears."

Blaine sat in one of the familiar, plastic maroon chairs while Kurt and Rachel literally squealed and jumped up and down together, clutching their unopened letters. Rachel said something half beautiful and half inappropriately ridiculous, something about how their lives could truly be starting at that very moment, as soon as they opened the envelopes. "This could be _it_," she said.

Kurt remembered Blaine was in the room then, and went to him. He sat in his lap, draped an arm over his shoulders and held that damn envelope right where Blaine couldn't help but see it. He put his own arms around Kurt's waist and sunk his chin into Kurt's shoulder. Maybe if he absolutely had to cry, Kurt's thick sweater would soak up his tears before anyone noticed.

"Don't be too cute," Rachel warned them. "I can't handle romance right now."

Blaine ignored her. Kurt rolled his eyes and said something about how he had said the same to her a year and a half ago.

They argued for a minute and finally decided to open their envelopes at the same time. Kurt ripped his open first, and he waited for Rachel to finish, so they could remove the letters at the same time, unfold them at the same time, and read them at the same time.

Blaine closed his eyes against Kurt's sweater. He didn't even want to see the font. He thought about himself and wondered who would sit with him and open college acceptance letters with him a year from then. Probably no one, because Kurt would be gone.

Neither of them spoke. He couldn't take the suspense anymore. He lifted his head and looked from Rachel's face to Kurt's. Both of them were pale, and staring at the words. Blaine didn't know if either of them had read good news or bad news. It was simply big, life changing news.

Kurt and Rachel looked at each other, finally, waiting for the other to speak first. Instead, together, they both said quietly, "I didn't get in."

And for one second Blaine was stupidly, horribly happy. His heart skipped a beat and his lungs felt like they might burst and his fantasy about opening his own letter now had Kurt in it, and Rachel too. Now all three of them could try together, next year, like Blaine felt in his heart it always should have been. He couldn't stand to be left out.

But it was only one second. Rachel was shaking her head, and tears spilled out of her eyes, but instead of lying down and dying, like Blaine was afraid she might, she took Kurt by the collar and looked deep into his eyes and said, "_We are going anyway_."

And without knowing why, or how, Blaine found himself nodding. And he said, "Yes, you are."

And Kurt looked back and forth between them, and smiled through his tears, and asked Rachel, "We are?"

And Rachel and Blaine both said, "Yes."

"We are," Rachel said.

"You are," Blaine said.

Before he knew it, like only enough time to blink had passed, Blaine found himself in the audience in the auditorium, sitting next to Burt and Carole, waiting to watch Kurt graduate. Kurt and Rachel were mostly packed, their flight booked, an apartment picked out and a deposit already paid for. Kurt had sold one of his favorite jackets on eBay to pay for his half. It was a jacket he'd worn on one of their first dates. He'd sold it easily, happily, without regret. Blaine couldn't stop thinking about it.

Burt shifted in his seat next to him. They'd never really talked, not really. They exchanged pleasantries with each other, but never more than five words since Blaine told him to talk to Kurt about sex. He knew at the time it would probably make things weird and difficult, but he was too naive then to realize it would probably make things weird and difficult forever. It was a shame, because Kurt seemed to think Burt was the greatest father on earth, and Blaine would have probably almost died for the tiniest bit of similar attention. The mere thought of an adult man telling Blaine he didn't judge him and that everything would be okay seemed too good to be true. It still seemed too good to be true, with Burt fidgeting next to him at graduation, obviously trying to think of something to say. Blaine figured it would be about the weather.

"You sure are quiet today," it turned out to be instead.

Blaine looked at him and decided to be honest. He'd always been honest, for whatever reason, with Burt. "I'm sad that Kurt's leaving."

Burt laughed humorlessly through his nose. "Me too." He sighed, like he was about to say something he didn't want to. "Blaine… I wanted to thank you. For convincing Kurt to go to New York. I know it wasn't… in your best interest. It's not in mine, either. But I do think it'll be good for him, you know. To get out of here."

Blaine nodded. He couldn't say Burt was welcome, that would be weird. So he just nodded. That was the end of the conversation.

As all the seniors Blaine had never really known paraded through the auditorium, he wondered if Burt loved his son too much to ever really accept him. Maybe he would always believe it was Blaine who took Kurt away from him. It seemed funny, because Blaine felt like something else was taking Kurt away from _him_. He felt powerless over it, and blamed for it, at the same time.

When he saw Kurt's face on the other side of the huge room, making his way toward the stage, he couldn't help the tears that welled up in his eyes. When Kurt was close enough to see Blaine, he smiled, and tried to be genuinely happy about being a part of such an important moment in his boyfriend's life. But when Kurt joined his friends on stage, celebrating being finished with high school and ready to leave it all behind, he couldn't help but frown again, and hate it. The senior glee club members were singing and playing music, but all Blaine could hear was his own blood pounding in his ears.

There was a party held afterwards at the Hummel-Hudson house, where the whole glee club filled the basement and ate pizza and screamed, just like normal. Blaine continued to not say much, except when necessary. He was sure his heart was breaking. Maybe a piece of it would fall out of his mouth if he said too much.

At some point Kurt led him upstairs to his room and shut the door behind them. "It's our last night in this room!"

"Oh," Blaine said and deflated even more than he'd already been.

"No, it's a good thing!" Kurt smiled, and Blaine couldn't help but give a sad smile back. He was so happy. "No more sneaking around! I technically have my own apartment already. We just can't go there for a few more days."

"But I'm going to miss sneaking around with you. I'm going to miss this room."

"It's not forever, Blaine," Kurt said, and Blaine hated himself more. Now Kurt was worried. He'd stopped him from being happy. "I'll stay here every time I visit next year, and after that we'll come back every holiday, and sleep next to each other in my tiny twin bed until we're fifty and maybe we'll be too fat to fit then. Or maybe by then we'll host all the holidays at our place." He grinned.

"Maybe," Blaine agreed, but he couldn't keep the pretense up. "Kurt… I have to… I have to go home."

"Why? Don't you want to go back downstairs? Or we could stay up here, and hide from everyone, if you want. Are you sick?"

"No," Blaine shook his head, and felt like falling to pieces. "Yes, maybe. I don't know."

Kurt heard the break in his voice and instinctively pulled Blaine against him, holding him close. He even rubbed his back, trying to soothe him. Patient as ever, he waited for Blaine to say something first.

"I just don't want anything to change," Blaine whispered finally. "I don't want to be left behind. I don't want you to not be here when I might need you. What if I absolutely need to touch you, and talking to you just won't make it better?"

"But I thought you wanted me to go," Kurt said uncertainly.

"I do!" he said, as passionately as he felt it. "I do. But I don't want to stay here without you."

"I won't go if you don't want me to…"

"That's why you have to go," Blaine said. "I wouldn't want you here every day if I knew you secretly resented me for making you wait."

"Maybe I shouldn't. I knew I shouldn't a few months ago. How could I live with myself if I left you here and you had to go back to the hospital?" Kurt pulled away from him, looking more worried than ever. He chewed his lip in thought.

"Kurt—" Blaine began, not knowing how he could talk him back into it, especially now, when all he wanted was the opposite.

"It's not like I'm leaving you behind in perfect condition," Kurt ignored him, beginning to pace. "You're sick. There's something wrong with you, and until we know what it is and how to treat it I shouldn't leave you. Oh my God," he sighed, putting a hand to his forehead. "Being rejected from NYADA was probably a sign. I shouldn't go."

"No," Blaine said feebly. "It wasn't a sign. You belong there."

"Why did I listen to Rachel? I should have listened to you."

"I said the same thing Rachel said. We both want you to go. Look," Blaine swallowed hard, resolved to convince him to go, remembering Burt thanking him for doing it the first time. "What would your father say if you told him you're staying for me?"

"I don't care," Kurt answered, and Blaine knew that wasn't true.

"You do care. He would say you were making a big mistake. He'd say if you stay another year, what's to keep you from staying five or ten years? If you get stuck here you may never leave. You could ruin your whole life."

Kurt stopped pacing and just stared at him. He obviously didn't know what to do, or say.

"What if we promise, at first, to call each other twice a day?" Blaine tried to smile but it felt ridiculous.

But Kurt seemed to buy it. He smiled back, small and unsure. "Morning and night?"

"Then you'll know I'm okay, I made it through the night and the day, and I'll know you're okay, too."

"I'll be fine," Kurt said, certain.

"I will be, too. I just want to be sure."

With that, the New York plans were set back on track. Burt would drive Kurt, Rachel, and Blaine to the airport, they'd spend the weekend. Blaine would help carry things, (or decorate, or something, Kurt said), and when they were settled Blaine would go back, and leave them both behind.

With only two days until they were set to leave, Kurt showed up at Blaine's house to check on his packing progress.

"I don't need to bring as much as you do," Blaine said when Kurt made a face at the one bag he planned on bringing, half empty and abandoned near his closet. "I'll only be there two nights. It doesn't require a lot."

Kurt sighed and sat on the bed next to him. "I can't believe your parents are letting you come with us for the weekend."

"They just want us to break up. They're sure it'll happen once you go. They don't mind letting us have a goodbye weekend if it means… we'll be separated in the end." He could hardly get the last part out. He told himself he had to keep it together. It wasn't fair to Kurt to pull him in two different directions. There was no use in getting into the same conversation all over again. He swallowed dryly and stared at his hands in his lap, lost in his own misery. "The last time we'll be in this room, too, I guess."

"Which is a good thing," Kurt nodded, quietly encouraging Blaine to agree with him. "It's not like either of us had any fun hiding from them. Anyway, I wanted us to say goodbye to your room last. This is where…" he trailed off.

"Where we had our first kiss," Blaine finished for him.

"And where we made love, the first time. And both times since then. I mean, it was only a couple of months ago, but… I just can't do it at my dad's house. We're too close. I think he'd know as soon as we came out of the room. I think he already does know every time I come home from here, but…" Kurt stopped babbling and stared into the distance with a faint hint of nausea on on his face.

Blaine sighed and his shoulders drooped even farther.

Kurt looked at him and smiled again. "But I have _my own room_ in _my own apartment_ in New York! I mean, Rachel will be there, of course, but she doesn't count."

And I'll still be in this room, Blaine thought, where we used to kiss and make love, and try to fall asleep every single night, all alone.

"Obviously her opinion doesn't matter," Kurt went on, when Blaine was obviously frowning too hard to reply to him.

But Blaine couldn't make himself laugh at the joke. He couldn't even crack a smile. He barely heard a word Kurt said.

Kurt decided to try a new approach. He kissed Blaine at the corner of his lips, where he could reach the easiest from sitting next to him on the bed. Blaine turned and kissed him back. No amount of sadness was going to keep him from kissing Kurt, or from pretending all the while that maybe he could project his love so strongly through the kiss that he could stop time and melt into his boyfriend and cease to exist, which he thought at that moment was probably his number one wish. It seemed the best outcome of all possible outcomes.

Kurt had just turned to touch him, had just grazed his fingertips over Blaine's knee, when there was a sharp knock at the door. Kurt jumped back from him.

"Blaine?" Cooper asked from the other side.

Blaine sighed. "Is this really happening again? Why are you here? Go away."

"Why should I?"

"I'm with Kurt."

"Are you wearing clothes?"

Blaine rolled his eyes. "No," he snapped.

Kurt laughed into his hand.

"Nice work, little brother."

Kurt laughed harder. Trying to be silent, he put his face into one of Blaine's pillows.

"So go away," Blaine said, trying to be sympathetic that Cooper was exceptionally dimwitted and needed the clarification.

"I'm supposed to tell you to keep the door open. No, I was supposed to tell you that an hour ago. Now I'm supposed to tell you it's time for Kurt to go home."

Blaine looked at the window. "Because the sun went down?" he asked spitefully. "No. He's not going home yet. I don't want him to."

Kurt emerged from the pillow and took one of Blaine's hands in both of his. He kissed the tips of Blaine's fingers and looked up at him with his pretty blue eyes and said, "I probably should…"

Blaine stared at him.

"I don't think Mom and Dad will accept no for an answer. Should I say—"

"Fine," Blaine said to Kurt, stood quickly from the bed, and stomped to the door. He pulled it open with too much force and gestured Kurt should leave. "Then go."

Kurt frowned. "I just meant that I don't want to cause any problems with your parents. I don't want to make them angry…"

"Thank you for considering their feelings," Blaine said coldly, and decided to stare at the wall instead of look at Kurt. He still held the door open, still waiting for him to go.

Cooper stood in the hall, looking back and forth at them, confused.

Kurt hesitated a moment, waiting for Blaine to say something else, to apologize, but he didn't. So Kurt stood, and pressed the wrinkles out of his trousers with the palms of his hands, and almost left without another word passing between them.

But before he'd made it all the way into the hall, Blaine pulled him back by the wrist and pulled him into his arms. Kurt hugged him back, and Blaine knew he wasn't angry, just confused and a little hurt.

"I'm sorry," Blaine whispered into his ear, and bit his tongue hard after that so as not to completely fall apart. So he wouldn't start sobbing, or fall to his knees and beg Kurt not to leave.

"It's too late to change my mind now, Blaine," Kurt whispered back.

"I know." Blaine buried his nose into Kurt's shoulder and squeezed his eyes shut.

"You convinced me it's for the best."

"I know."

"We'll be okay. You'll handle it better than you think you can now."

"I know."

Kurt rubbed his back for a second. "I'll see you tomorrow. Dad wants to leave at 8."

"Okay," Blaine took a deep, shaking breath.

Kurt let him go, stepping back a little to smile at him. His eyes were dry, but Blaine's were flooded with tears.

"I love you," Kurt said.

Blaine nodded as Kurt turned and made his way down the stairs, to the front door. He couldn't speak. Cooper was still standing there, with his arms crossed over his stomach, watching them like a particularly compelling television show.

Blaine backed up and shut the door in his face.


	4. Chapter 4

Blaine sat between Kurt and Rachel on the plane and tried not to be noticeably hopelessly depressed. While they talked and tittered to each other over him, he vowed to himself to try to be happy. If he couldn't convince himself he'd done the right thing by encouraging Kurt to go, he could at least not bring them down over their first weekend in New York. They had two days all to themselves. For two days he could pretend he was going to stay with them, and that would make him happy.

"I can't believe we're going back!" Rachel bounced in her seat.

"For the record, I was not crying when I left my dad," Kurt said, rubbing his dry cheeks. He still hadn't taken off the sunglasses he'd put on between Burt's car and the terminal. Blaine put his head on Kurt's shoulder sympathetically.

"And Blaine! You're going to New York _for the first time_! Or have you been there before?" Rachel asked.

"No, I've never been there before," Blaine said.

"Have you ever even been on a _plane_ before? Wait, don't answer that. You probably spent every summer of your childhood somewhere in the Mediterranean."

"No comment," Blaine answered, and they both laughed. He smiled. What a strange sensation.

In the city Rachel carried two suitcases, Kurt carried two suitcases, and Blaine carried two more of Kurt's, along with his own, sad little two-day bag. They tried not to trip strangers, or knock the legs out from anyone, as they went from train to train, from JFK all the way to Brooklyn.

By the time they were walking the final three blocks they were out of breath and had cramps in their arms. "Okay," Rachel huffed, "we should have splurged on a taxi, just this once."

"I told you I spent all my money checking four suitcases," Kurt replied.

"This is a more authentic experience," Blaine said, deciding to be optimistic about absolutely everything all weekend long. "You have to suffer to get to New York, and it won't accept you until then, or something."

Rachel rolled her eyes.

Blaine and Kurt came to a quick halt when Rachel suddenly stopped and looked up to the top of a certain brick building. "This is it," she said quietly.

Kurt took a deep breath. "Remember what we promised in Lima. We got this apartment, sight unseen, on the Internet. It's probably mold infested, rat infested, bat infested—"

"Oh God," Rachel said, maybe on the verge of fainting.

"But we're going to clean it, empty it out, free all the critters, paint it, and we'll make it our own," Kurt insisted. He dropped one of his suitcases and put an arm around her shoulders.

Blaine stood awkwardly to the side, thinking about how much they looked and sounded like a newly married couple and trying not to grind his teeth down to nothing. If only things were different, he and Kurt would be finding their first place together instead.

Optimism, he repeated to himself. Optimism. You're the one he's taking to bed tonight. That thought superficially cheered him up, would keep him from sobbing for at least the next ten minutes, and that's all he needed. One step at a time.

"What if there's no floor?" Rachel was whispering. "What there are squatters in it? What if they have guns?"

Blaine took the initiative to pull open the front door, leading to the mailboxes and the stairwell. "Let's go in," he smiled at them, only marginally forced. "Eighth floor, right?"

He led the way up the stairs, but each subsequent flight slowed them more and more.

"Oh, God," Kurt gasped half way up. They were all feeling a little asthmatic. "Next time we are definitely renting in a building with an elevator."

"What is wrong with these stairs?" Rachel asked, pulling each suitcase up each stair with both hands, one at a time. "Why won't they end?"

"Just think how muscular you'll be in a month," Blaine said from the top, his emotional unease keeping him from succumbing to the stairs. He had enough suppressed rage to stomp up and down them a few times. "You'll have abs." Optimism!

They made it to the door of their apartment finally, Kurt and Rachel gasping for breath again. Rachel almost put the key in the lock but hesitated first. "Before we go in, I just want to say, if there's no floor in there, I'm sorry."

"I'll forgive you," Kurt promised, and Blaine nodded.

She unlocked the door and pushed it open.

They stared for a moment, speechless, from the hallway.

"It's fine," Blaine said finally, going in first.

"It has a floor," Kurt observed, following him.

"I think it smells weird. Does it smell weird?" Rachel asked.

"We'll open the windows," Blaine said, crossing the room to get to one. He tried to pull it open but it was painted shut. He turned back to her. "We'll buy some air freshener," he amended.

They checked closets and the bathroom for intruders of any species, but found nothing alarming at all.

"Is it actually possible we didn't make a horrible decision?" Rachel asked.

Kurt looked up. "Well, the ceiling didn't just fall on your head, so I guess it is possible."

They seemed happy. They ordered authentic New York pizza for lunch, which turned not to be very good or necessarily authentic. While they ate there was a knock on the door. They froze for a moment, wondering who could possibly be there to visit.

"This is it," Rachel said. "This is how we die."

Kurt rolled his eyes and got up to open the door.

"Delivery for Rachel Berry," a couple of men said, and proceeded to bring two bed frames, two mattresses, a sofa, a television, a small kitchen table and two chairs up all eight flights of stairs and into the appropriate rooms. All the while Rachel jumped and clapped.

"My dads are amazing," she sighed.

"They can't just buy me a bed," Kurt said, frowning into his room. "I can pretend the rest of it is yours and you let me borrow it, but not that. I have a hundred dollars saved to get a mattress."

"You can't get a mattress for a hundred dollars," Rachel and Blaine told him together.

"A… used… one?" he tried.

"If you made me sleep on someone's used mattress this weekend, I'd leave and stay at a hotel. And take you with me," Blaine said.

"Just pay them back later, if you really want to," Rachel waved it off. She ran into her room and jumped onto the bed. "It's amazing." She gave them a look. "You know what we _can_ buy with a hundred dollars? Sheets. And dishes. Well, cheap sheets, and a few dishes. What else do we need?" Without waiting for an answer she bounced off the bed and headed to the door. "Let's go shopping."

Blaine loyally followed them around, store after store, smiling, offering advice, helping to carry even more bags, and smiling more. They were out until the sky turned black and all the lights of the city flickered on.

With their arms full of bags overflowing with household necessities, Rachel stopped them on the way home and insisted they try a certain Italian restaurant for dinner.

They sat in a dark little corner booth. Blaine pulled Kurt next to him, and they piled all their purchases next to Rachel. When she looked particularly engrossed in her menu, Kurt nudged Blaine's shoulder.

"You okay?" he asked quietly.

Blaine looked at him sideways. "Honestly, I'm exhausted."

Kurt smiled. "Really? I'm wide awake."

"Me too," Rachel said. "I'm just so excited. Maybe it's adrenaline. Maybe we should run around the perimeter of Manhattan."

Kurt laughed.

Blaine sighed and ordered coffee with his meal. When the waiter left he looked at Kurt again. "Are you happy?"

"Of course I am. Do I not look happy?"

"No, you do. I just want to be sure you're not… freaked out."

"No, I'm happy. I mean, look at us! We moved in, we bought stuff for our apartment, we're in an adorable New York restaurant. We haven't been held up at knifepoint yet. We can totally do this."

Rachel nodded. "We can."

Blaine turned his gaze from Kurt to Rachel. He was irrationally angry with her. He knew he shouldn't be, and that she didn't deserve it, so he was hiding it as best as he possibly could. But his nerves were wearing thin then and he decided to at prod her, just a little.

"Are we allowed to talk about Finn yet?" he asked, concentrating on pouring a packet of sugar into his coffee.

Kurt tensed beside him, and looked at Rachel to see if she would start screaming or burst into tears.

She was silent at first, but finally nodded. "Sure, we can talk about him."

Pain passed over her face, and Blaine felt as awful as he deserved to. "Sorry," he said. "I shouldn't have brought it up."

"I don't know what he's trying to prove," she blurted out, ignoring Blaine's apology. "Do you know about his stupid soulmate situation?"

"No," Blaine lied.

"I told him, but I made him promise to act like he doesn't know anything about it," Kurt explained.

"He doesn't want anyone to know anything about it, he doesn't want anyone to talk to him about it. I actually think he broke up with me just because I know, and now he refuses to be around me." Rachel sighed and stabbed a tomato with her fork. "It doesn't make sense otherwise. If he has no intention of finding his soulmate, why would he break up with me? We were perfect together. And I'm convinced that's why I didn't make it into NYADA. I mean, who breaks up with someone five minutes before a big audition?"

"It's_ life experience_, Kurt insisted. "Now you can play broken hearted authentically."

"I don't know if it was worth it or not," she said, frowning, and silence followed.

"Fantastic," Blaine said. "Now I've depressed everyone."

Rachel shook her head. "I'm fine. It's just…" She looked up at him. "Since you'll be in Lima another year, it might be nice if you talk to him. Maybe he needs someone to…" she made an indecipherable gesture with her hands.

Blaine waited for her to explain in words, but she didn't. So he said, "Okay," instead, not sure what he'd just agreed to do.

She seemed to regain some, but not all, of the cheerfulness she'd had before he said anything. They shared a dessert and talked, Kurt and Rachel about the future, Blaine periodically reminding them of the past.

They paid finally, sometime around midnight, and walked back to the apartment. Kurt took Blaine's hand and they slowed to fall a few paces behind Rachel.

Kurt smiled at him and swung their clasped hands in the space between them, wordlessly pointing out that they were holding hands in public. When Blaine realized it his heart swelled. Suddenly he remembered a million times at school, or shopping at the mall, or being anywhere except alone in one of their bedrooms when he would catch himself standing too close to Kurt. A couple of times he even realized he'd unconsciously put his arm around Kurt's waist. All the times he'd grabbed Kurt's hand and then, at the contact, realized he couldn't, and dropped it again like he'd been scalded. He remembered the specific feeling in his chest every time he had to take a step back from Kurt, to check and see if anyone was watching, the fear that the wrong person might be.

Ahead of them Rachel babbled on endlessly, certain that he and Kurt were hanging on her every word, and he realized how grateful of her friendship he was, but it wasn't until then. She was certainly the most accepting of their relationship of all their friends, and he did enjoy spending time with her. He was glad she was there, even if he'd spent the whole day wishing he could obliterate her with his mind. But nothing could change the fact that there were some parts of his and Kurt's lives that she would never understand. That moment was one of them.

Blaine decided to kiss him. In less than a second his plan progressed from kissing him on the cheek, to the lips, and it ended up that he had Kurt backed up against the brick exterior of a Japanese grocery store, his fingers twined in and tugging Kurt's hair, his tongue sliding into Kurt's mouth. Kurt didn't protest; his eyebrows rose in surprise but he pulled Blaine closer, arms wrapping around his waist.

It took Rachel a few extra steps before she realized they weren't following her anymore, and she stopped short with a, "Hey! What're you—" and then put a hand on her hip and glared at them until they pulled apart from each other and followed her again.

Kurt seemed a little unsteady on his feet, which Blaine considered an accomplishment, and his hair was mussed and he was speechless.

"Can you _please_ wait until we get home, at least?" Rachel scolded them.

They obliged, but abandoned her pretty quickly after making it through the front door. She went into her room and shut the door, saying something Blaine didn't pay attention to about noise canceling headphones.

If Blaine really thought about it, which he didn't, he would feel guilty about bringing up Rachel's breakup and then banishing her to her room to sit, alone, and wait for morning when he and Kurt would actually speak to her again. But all he could think about was Kurt.

They had to take a short break from kissing when they got into his room, realizing the mattress was bare. "My sheets!" Kurt exclaimed, and Blaine waited semi-patiently while he pulled them on and smoothed out all the wrinkles, and assured him that the viridescent color was lovely.

He'd had a plan for that night for a while. Sometimes he was too miserable to remember it, and all that day he'd purposefully not thought about it because it would have driven him crazy.

Since the first time they had sex they continued to do exactly the same thing each time afterward. It was probably because it worked well enough the first time, and it was less embarrassing to do the same thing than try something new, or even mention trying something new. It was comfortable. Which was fine. But Blaine needed to switch positions with him before he left New York. He knew somehow that his soul needed it, needed to be surrounded and enveloped, taken and penetrated by Kurt to be able to survive a year without him.

As soon as the sheets were set to Kurt's liking, Blaine pinned him down on the bed and kissed him. Kurt began to protest. "I just realized, I think… you're supposed to… wash sheets before you put them on." He pulled back from Blaine, to where Blaine couldn't reach for a moment, and looked mildly terrified. "What if someone bought them before, and _used_ them, and returned them and—" but he stopped when Blaine hummed to the contrary against his lips.

It went against all of his wishes, but Blaine couldn't help but tease him a little. "You're the one who wanted to sleep on a used mattress."

"But that's _New Yorky_," Kurt said. "This is just dirty."

It made no sense to Blaine. "We are not having this conversation anymore," he decided, and kissed Kurt again.

Kurt sighed something indecipherable, maybe about laundromats and showers later, and settled down into that familiar place beneath Blaine on the bed. It was nice to have Kurt's arms around his neck, to kiss down to his throat and to just almost feel his heartbeat through the thin fabric between them, but he wasn't going to let it last long. Ignoring the part of him that wanted to stay there forever, he rolled off to the side and lay on his back, waiting for Kurt to infer the meaning and climb atop him. Instead Kurt just looked at him with a frown. "What are you doing over there?"

Blaine smiled and motioned toward himself with his hands. "Come here."

"Oh," Kurt said, and then realized what was happening. "Oh… I… I… no."

Blaine blinked at him. "No?"

"No, no. I think you… have to possess a certain talent that I'm… lacking."

"You do?"

"Yes, like… ruggedness, and general sexuality."

"I'm sorry," Blaine said, pausing. "What?"

"I don't know!" Kurt yelled, and turned red. "You have to know what you're doing, to be on top. And I don't have any idea."

"Like I knew what I was doing, our first time? I didn't know, either. But now I've paved the way and it should be ten times easier for you."

Kurt chewed on his lip, thinking.

Blaine sat up. "You know what? Never mind."

"No, no!" Kurt yelled again. "I'll do it, I just—"

"No, I'm serious. You said no, I'm respecting it. Let's just… go watch TV. We can pull Rachel out of her room and have a marathon of the worst show we can possibly find."

"No," Kurt said, insistent. He put his hands on Blaine's legs to keep him from getting up off the bed completely and leaving the room. "Just give me a second to think."

Blaine leaned his elbows on his legs and put his chin in his hands, waiting. "I have no intention of letting you touch me at all after this, but for the record, you are the sexiest boy I've ever seen."

Kurt sighed. "Including celebrities?"

"Including celebrities."

He shook his head. "That's not true. Everything about me screams five year old."

"Um," Blaine said and took Kurt's hand to kiss his knuckles. "I beg to differ."

"It's also not true you're not letting me touch you anymore," Kurt smiled at him.

"Want to bet?"

"Yes," he said, and crawled closer to Blaine until he settled on his lap. "I'll do it, I just need a little encouragement."

"I'm not encouraging you to do anything you don't want to do," Blaine replied, and looked away to a random blank spot on the wall. It was proving difficult to keep a straight face. It was easier if he didn't look at him.

"All you have to say," Kurt said, expertly guiding Blaine down to his back again, "is that you want me, and you trust me, and you know I can do it."

"Isn't that exactly what I've already said?" Blaine asked, but Kurt ignored him and kissed him. "I want you all the time, I trust you with my life, and I know you can do it," he whispered against Kurt's lips. "And you're the one who told me I had to try being on the bottom."

Kurt laughed and blushed. "You can't quote me from times that I… when I…" he stopped, not knowing what to say. "Well, it's true, you should."

Blaine made a gesture that indicated he was waiting, ready when Kurt was.

Kurt took a deep breath. "Okay," he said.

At least by then they had learned to undress each other with better fluidity, and some small and still alert part of Blaine's mind was happy to note Kurt left the light on. Usually they made love in the dark, under blankets, at Kurt's will.

When Blaine was naked and Kurt only wore a thin pair of briefs, he seemed to suddenly realize the light he'd forgotten. He made a slightly unhappy noise and twisted toward the light switch, hoping to reach it without getting off the bed, but Blaine wrapped his arms around Kurt's waist and pulled him back before his fingers made it.

"Leave it," Blaine whispered, "please."

Kurt hesitated, the look on his face ready to turn into the word 'no' at any second.

But before he could say it, Blaine played the best card he had. "We're going to be apart for a year after this. I won't even see your face again until Thanksgiving or Christmas. Let me see you now, while we're still together. All of you."

"You have seen me," Kurt laughed a little awkwardly.

"Not in the light," Blaine said, and didn't say that it also had a lot to do with trust, and that he wanted Kurt to trust him completely even more than he wanted to have sex with him.

But he didn't have to. Kurt sat up on his knees, looking nervous but not particularly afraid, and pulled off his underwear himself, and then waited, unmoving, for Blaine to look at him.

Blaine had seen Kurt a little bit before, in the dark shadows, and had touched him plenty of times, and imagined the look of what he was feeling. But it was nice, an understatement of the century, it was _amazing_ and _fulfilling_ to see Kurt's whole body, without anything in the way. It made him feel more like Kurt's lover, which was on most days the only thing he wanted to be. It made him the only person in the world besides Kurt himself who had seen him like that: adult and naked, with half an erection.

Unsurprisingly, Kurt's penis was long and lean and flushed pink like the rest of him, ending in a patch of brown hair that Blaine had secretly wanted to kiss for almost as long as he'd known him. He supposed giving Kurt his first blow job _and_ asking him to top all in one night would be asking too much, so he suppressed the urge and pulled Kurt into his lap instead. Even though they were in opposite positions, it was a comfortable, familiar place to be and Kurt seemed to relax.

"I don't know why I always think you're going to make fun of me," Kurt smiled, embarrassed. "I value your opinion too highly, I guess."

"I'm only thinking about how beautiful you are, and all the dirty things I'm going to do to you later. I would never make fun of you, and I couldn't anyway, because there's nothing to make fun of. You're bigger than me anyway, dummy," Blaine said, and kissed him.

Kurt smiled into the kiss. "Maybe length, not girth. It doesn't—"

Blaine shushed him. "Promise me, starting now, you'll never worry about what I think, ever again. Don't ever be embarrassed around me, especially about your body or your sexuality."

"Fine," Kurt nodded. "I am kind of hot, right?"

"Right," Blaine agreed. "More than kind of. And always be honest with me. So tell me the truth. Do you want to be with me tonight? Or do you want TV night with Rachel?"

"You," Kurt answered immediately. "Definitely."

"Do you want me to be on top again?"

"No," Kurt shook his head. "I want to try it. Before you go."

Blaine sighed at the reminder. While he was momentarily distracted, Kurt leaned over and pulled a bottle of lube from one of his gigantic suitcases, one of the ones Blaine had been dragging around all day. He smiled triumphantly.

Blaine half groaned and half laughed. "I was going to attempt to discreetly buy some today and I forgot. I didn't want to fly with it. Does it count as liquid? I don't know."

"Got it myself," Kurt hummed happily and poured some into his hand.

"In Lima?"

He nodded and gave a stroke to Blaine's erection. "You should have seen what I was wearing. I scared the shit out of the cashier."

Blaine arced his hips forward into the touch and grabbed hold of Kurt's penis, teasing it until it stood fully erect. "Now you're my hero."

"You're still mine," Kurt said, and kissed him so hard he leaned back toward the bed again. "Now lie down and open your legs."

Blaine snorted but obliged. "Such a romantic," he whispered.

"I love you to death," Kurt assured him, settling on top of him. "And I am romantic, I'm just trying out strong and assertive right now. It's who I need to be for this performance."

Blaine tried not to laugh, but didn't hide his smile. He hooked his legs up onto Kurt's hips, certain this was the most vulnerable position he had ever been in, and found it thrilling.

Kurt looked at his own fingers, lubrication still on them. "Should I?" he asked nervously.

"Please, Mr. Assertive," Blaine said.

The first finger offered an expected, dull discomfort. Blaine was more nervous about the prospect of two, but tried diligently not to show it. He wanted desperately to see the whole thing through.

Without asking for permission anymore, Kurt began to slide a second finger in, and it was then that Blaine felt a change. He didn't have the capacity to feel pain or discomfort, because he became suddenly consumed and obsessed with the feeling of Kurt, his fingers were fine, but his penis would be much better, being inside him. Kurt curled his fingers slightly and stroked him from the inside, and Blaine, without warning or meaning to, shook with passion.

"Are you okay?" Kurt asked when Blaine jerked, but closer to him, not away.

"Yeah," Blaine cleared his throat. "Yes." He reached down between then to pull Kurt's wrist, to pull his fingers out. "Let's really do this."

"Are you sure?" Kurt asked, a little taken aback. "We can spend more time preparing—"

But Blaine shook his head, ignoring him, and spreading lubrication over Kurt's length. "No, I need you, right now."

"Okay, okay, but don't rush too much," Kurt said. Blaine was trying to line himself up with Kurt without his help, to push himself into Kurt if Kurt wasn't going to push inside first.

He managed it, somehow, and allowed too much of Kurt in too fast. He was hit with a fast, hot burst of pain that brought him back down to reality, if only for a moment.

"Blaine!" Kurt scolded, and grabbed his hand. They gripped each other's fingers tightly. "What are you doing?"

"Sorry," Blaine breathed, somewhat certain he was bleeding, and not really caring. The pain was fading almost as fast as it had come, and he was being overtaken again by the absolute need to do nothing but feel Kurt moving inside him. "Did I hurt you?"

"No, of course not. You're the one who must be hurt."

He shook his head. "I'm fine now. Please." He wasn't sure what he was pleading for, or at least was too afraid to say it out loud. But Kurt knew, Kurt always knew, and he moved.

Poor, sweet Kurt was as slow and scared as Blaine had been the first time, certain if he moved much at all he might break Blaine into pieces. It was fine for a while, while Blaine recovered. But all pain was instantaneously forgotten when Kurt gently, probably accidentally, bumped into Blaine's prostate.

Blaine involuntarily clenched tight around Kurt, and Kurt gasped in response, and both of them had a moment in which they lost themselves, in which they both tried hard not to moan out loud.

Blaine had his eyes shut tight and leaned his head back far so his throat was exposed. Kurt kissed him there, at his Adam's apple, so gently it drove Blaine crazy. It was beautiful and felt wonderful, but he needed something more.

He opened his eyes and looked at Kurt. "Don't freak out," he said.

"Why? What? Why?" Kurt asked, freaking out.

Blaine held onto Kurt's waist and pulled himself up, slowly and carefully so as not to disturb the contact or allow Kurt to fall or pull out of him. He guided Kurt to his back, until he was settled down comfortably on his new sheets and Blaine was sitting up on top of him. He took Kurt's hand again, and again Kurt grasped his fingers tight.

"Are you okay?" Blaine asked him.

"Are _you_ okay?" Kurt replied.

"I'm fine, I promise. I want to try it like this," Blaine said, and wiggled down so that Kurt's entire length filled him. Kurt was too nervous to try going in all the way before, and Blaine was feeling too impatient to wait for him.

In that position the responsibility fell off Kurt, which relaxed him. In that position, Blaine had control over mostly everything, and that thrilled him, too. He tried to start slow for Kurt, but he lost himself again soon afterward, and quickly began to move faster and harder than they'd ever tried before. The harder he pushed himself onto Kurt, the better it felt, and the speed was just a consequence. He tried to remember to squeeze tight against Kurt's erection, and each time he managed Kurt would moan quietly, almost to himself, behind his hand. Blaine had to pull Kurt's hand from his mouth a dozen times, wanting to see his face, wanting to hear him.

He'd found the exact position to lean in so that the tip of Kurt's penis collided perfectly with his prostate, and when he found it he slowed somewhat, wanting to make it last. "Are you okay?" he asked again, only then realizing he was out of breath.

"F—f—fine," Kurt answered, the word knocked off its track every time Blaine came down on him. Kurt tried to touch him, to stroke Blaine like Blaine always stroked him when their roles were reversed, but Blaine took his hand and held it out of reach. He would never last if Kurt touched him, and he wanted Kurt to come first. He almost needed it to happen. He was loving the experience far too much, he hadn't spent enough time reciprocating to Kurt.

He leaned down on his elbows and brought his lips to Kurt's. "How does it feel?" he whispered, still breathing hard, still trying to move slower.

"Amazing. Fantastic."

"Fucking fantastic?"

"Fucking perfect."

Blaine smiled and rolled them over again. It wasn't quite as good for him, but he was sure it was better for Kurt. He looked up at Kurt, his soulmate, and wrapped his legs around Kurt's waist again. "You can do it," he said. Encouragement.

Kurt pushed farther into Blaine than he'd done before, smiling when Blaine whispered 'harder' and 'harder' and finally, 'good, good.' And by then Blaine was an incoherent mess and didn't have the ability to keep Kurt from stroking him, base to tip, in time with his thrusts.

They orgasmed together again, not exactly what Blaine had wanted but close enough. He hated Kurt pulling out more than Kurt seemed to hate it, and covered his face with his hands while Kurt rolled to his side and kissed his shoulder.

"I'm sorry," Blaine said, willing his breathing to slow. His chest still rose and fell wildly. "Apparently I really liked that."

"You bled, a little bit," Kurt replied.

Blaine groaned. "Your sheets."

"I can get it out. I can get anything out of anything. I'll do it tomorrow. Don't worry about my sheets. I'm worried about you."

"Don't worry about me," Blaine said so quietly he wasn't sure Kurt could hear him.

"Can you stay awake long enough to take a shower? I want to get it off of you. It makes me sad."

But Blaine was already asleep.


	5. Chapter 5

In the morning Blaine could hardly wake up. He'd put a substantial dent in Kurt and Rachel's stock of coffee before he finally realized they were all three at the table, eating Rachel's undercooked pancakes. He had a nondescript memory of Kurt showering with him before that, holding him up more than anything so that he wouldn't crash to the tile floor.

He was sort of dozing through breakfast, his head cradled in his hand, when his fourth cup of coffee seemed to kick in, a little, and he straightened up and blinked at them.

"He lives!" Rachel said.

"Are you okay?" Kurt leaned toward him, looking deep into his eyes like he might see in them the root of the problem.

"I'm fine, I'm just…"

"You were mumbling incoherently for an hour," Rachel said.

He put a hand to his hair. Kurt had washed it and let it air dry. "I think I was dreaming."

"You really should see a doctor about that, Blaine Anderson," Rachel pointed at him.

"He has seen a doctor about it, Rachel," Kurt glared at her.

She frowned. "I was joking. I know, I went to the hospital with you, remember?"

"I'm… it's not…" Blaine shook his head. "I'm just exhausted from yesterday."

"Spare me the details, please," Rachel replied.

Kurt was looking at him with wide, worried eyes.

"I just mean yesterday in general. The traveling and the suitcases and … all those stairs. Not from _last night_."

"Stop!" Rachel yelled, and put her fingers to his lips. When she was sure he wouldn't say any more, she brought her hand back to her lap, and said more calmly, "Luckily for both of you, I heard nothing, and that's the last we're speaking of it."

Kurt and Blaine were silent.

"Might I add," she said a moment later, ignoring her own rules, "that it's actually a good thing you're not staying with us, Blaine. I couldn't handle it." She looked to an invisible point wistfully, and lamented, "I honestly don't think I can ever love again. I can't even stand to look at the two of you together."

"Well, thank you for that," Kurt told her sarcastically, but she ignored him.

Blaine just sighed. He supposed it was his fault for bringing up Finn, but he didn't have the energy or the will to apologize again. So he said nothing.

And on that less than happy note, his last day in New York with Kurt began.

First Blaine walked around the corner with Kurt to the relatively sketchy laundromat he found to pick up the sheets he'd left to wash and dry while Blaine was trying to wake up on the sofa, while Rachel cooked. Blaine tried to carry them back for him, but Kurt wouldn't allow it after the excuses he made over breakfast.

Rachel glared at them when they got back, knowing the implications of washing sheets, and resenting that bringing them back in front of her was rubbing her face in her aloneness, but Kurt repeated his story about how someone else might have used and returned them before he bought them, and that she should wash her new sheets, too. She said she'd do it later, because she wanted to go out.

Kurt's one hundred dollars had run out halfway through the day before, but luckily Burt sent him more, enough to help him "get by" until Kurt found a job.

While they shopped for more housewares, Kurt and Rachel argued over whether or not they should reapply to NYADA next semester, and how soon they should apply to restaurants to get jobs as a waiter and waitress. Should they try to work at the same place? Should they work at a place close to their apartment? Was that even safe? If they worked at some fancy place in Manhattan, they'd make so much more money, but then they'd have to pay for the commute.

Blaine dragged his feet slowly behind them, still not feeling very good, and tried to ignore everything that they said. Kurt periodically turned to frown at him, every now and then would pull him aside and ask if he was okay. Yes, Blaine said again and again, I'm fine. Maybe he wasn't exactly fine, but he wouldn't admit it. He could rest when he got home, and be bitter and grumpy then too. He still refused to bring them down.

By late afternoon they were forced to stop back at the apartment to drop off their purchases, and Kurt stood up tall, waiting for them to pay attention to him, like he had an announcement to make.

"Rachel," he began. "How much would you hate us if Blaine and I spent the rest of the night alone? Like, on a date?"

"In bed?" She glared at him.

"No, out. Around town. Maybe to dinner… and a show."

Blaine gasped and whispered in cupped hands to him, "We should go to Wicked."

Kurt smiled and nodded.

Rachel's jaw dropped. She looked back and forth between them, and finally her shoulders slumped. "Fine. I'll just stay here. Wash my sheets."

"No," Blaine said. "We can't. You should come."

"No, no," she shook her head. "You go. Go on your date. I understand."

Kurt had to drag him out the door because he felt so guilty for the way he thought he'd been treating Rachel, but he was persuaded eventually. He'd gotten to a point where he was completely avoiding thinking about how he only had hours left with Kurt, not even a whole day, anymore. But when he allowed his eventual departure back to Lima to enter his mind, however momentarily, he knew he wanted a night alone with Kurt.

A few trains later and they were walking arm in arm through Times Square. They got last minute, overpriced, upper-upper-upper tier seating for Wicked, during which Kurt held his hand and rested his head on Blaine's shoulder the whole time, including intermission.

Afterward Blaine insisted they go to a fancy restaurant for a late dinner, just so Kurt knew what it might be like to have a post-Broadway performance dinner. They turned to gawk at each person who came through the door after them, but couldn't recognize anyone.

"I guess we didn't pick the right insider restaurant," Blaine said.

Kurt nudged him with the toe of his boot under the table. "No, it's the perfect place," he said.

After dinner they went back to Kurt's apartment and snuggled under the clean sheets and blankets and watched TV on Kurt's laptop in the dark. Blaine fell asleep first, curled into Kurt's side, his nose pressed into the soft cotton of the t-shirt Kurt slept in. He wanted to, and meant to, make love to him again that night but knew he'd never have the energy to, so he was left to only dream about how much he wanted to kiss up one of Kurt's open thighs, and kiss the crease of his leg, and kiss him everywhere, forever.

In the morning Blaine felt better, physically at least, and was able to actually enjoy waking up next to Kurt, as opposed to an hour or so later at the table. Kurt started tossing and turning, trying and failing to hold on to sleep. He went back and forth between curling up against Blaine's back, to rolling to his other side, but even when they faced away from each other, Kurt never let go of his hand. Blaine was already smiling at this, but he had tp laugh out loud when Kurt, half asleep, pulled so hard on Blaine's hand that he rolled over and was forced to drape an arm over Kurt's waist.

"What are you laughing at? What did I do?" Kurt asked, muffled.

"Nothing," Blaine answered.

After a minute Kurt rolled over and blinked at him sleepily. They watched each other for a while, wordlessly. Rays of sun shone through gaps in the blinds and landed on Kurt's eyelashes, and Blaine was mesmerized by it.

"I don't think I'm going to let you go," Kurt said finally.

"Okay," Blaine agreed.

"Want to drop out of school?"

Far away, in the kitchen, Rachel seemed to pick up and drop the two pans she and Kurt owned, and managed to make it sound like she'd picked up and dropped twenty.

Blaine opened his mouth to answer, but before he could say anything, Kurt shook his head. "You can't."

"Why not?"

"You'd never get to go to college, and imagine how much your parents would love me, then."

"I don't care," Blaine said, fully aware they'd reversed the conversation they had in Lima, when Blaine used Burt as a guilt tactic to get him to move to New York.

Kurt knew it too, and he smiled. "Yes, you do."

Rachel screamed a blood curdling scream. Blaine and Kurt waited. A moment later she called out, "No, no… never mind, everything's fine."

Kurt sighed. "We're going to do this. We're going to live apart."

"We are?"

"And it's going to be okay."

"Okay."

"It's not a whole year, anyway. Thanksgiving is in four months. I'll be back then."

"Okay." He could do four months.

But after finally getting out of bed, they were both quiet and depressed. Rachel was half-ready to go to the airport with them but Kurt shook his head at her and she relented.

It was easier to get back to JFK without four of Kurt's suitcases, but it reiterated how sad it was that Blaine had only one, partially full, solitary bag.

They embraced in front of security, the point at which Kurt could follow Blaine no farther.

"We're not saying goodbye," Kurt reminded him.

"I know."

"I'll be back for every holiday, and your birthday, and my birthday, and by then you'll be back here to stay," Kurt said.

"Okay."

Kurt pressed a languid kiss to his cheek. Blaine blinked at him and concentrated on not hyperventilating.

"We can do it," Kurt said, taking a tentative step backward.

"Okay," Blaine agreed.

"We're not saying goodbye."

"I know," Blaine said again.

With one last look and nod, Blaine turned and began the slow and horrible descent into security. When he made it to the other side, Kurt was still standing there, watching, now separated from him by several near-cops and a thick pane of glass. Kurt raised a hand and waved, and Blaine waved, too, before he went to his gate. Was that goodbye?

The flight was delayed an inconsequential 30 or so minutes, and to waste time, Blaine got out his phone. For some reason, perhaps simply fate, it was in that overcrowded JFK lobby that Blaine, seated on the floor across from an airport chain fake-French, fake-Starbucks coffee place, accepted the friend request of one Eli C. on Facebook. He didn't know him, but they had three mutual friends, all Dalton guys.

As soon as he made a post about leaving JFK, Eli replied immediately with a warning: don't try the coffee at that airport chain fake-French place. Blaine looked down at his large latte, which was admittedly the worst coffee he'd ever had in his life, and said, _Too late_.

It was just to waste time. That was all he meant to do.

—

"How's it feel to be abandoned by the only person who loves you?" Cooper asked later, the night before the first day of Blaine's senior year.

He dropped his phone and glared at him. "Ha, ha."

"Seriously, do you even talk to Kurt anymore?" Cooper asked, kicking his feet up on the ottoman that their parents forbid feet to be on, and turned on the television, flipping through the channels quickly. Blaine assumed he was looking for his own commercial.

"Of course I do. What do you think I'm doing right now?" he waved his phone. That was sort of a lie. He texted Kurt for a second time, who hadn't responded in almost two days, and was at that point sending a private message to Eli. Which didn't actually mean anything, he told himself again. Eli knew about Kurt, they'd had entire conversations about him. And Blaine was allowed to have friends, especially since Kurt got his internship at Vogue and those inevitable awesome, amazing, and stylish New York friends had entered into his life. Blaine was hardly friends with anyone left at McKinley, and felt that the Warblers had forgotten entirely about him. He might have been friends with Finn if he ever saw Finn, but he was always working at Burt's tire shop and generally making himself unavailable. Blaine had the feeling Finn was depressed, but didn't feel close enough to him to bring it up or try to help him with it.

And Eli was funny, and easy to talk to, and they got along well. He thought the only reason he had a small amount of nagging guilt about it was because Eli had stopped posting things on Blaine's wall and had taken their conversations to private messages. It was fine when they had conversations for everyone, Kurt included, to see. But private messages felt like they were hiding something. But they weren't. So whatever, Blaine told himself. Whatever. It was harmless. It wasn't even remotely similar to the Chandler/Kurt situation. All he and Eli ever talked about were movies and restaurants and the ridiculous people Dalton was stooping to accept now, who Eli had the misfortune of attending class with. He said Blaine should come back to restore some dignity to the place, and Blaine said it just wasn't worth it.

He still felt close, or at least loyal, to the students left in glee club, even if it wasn't lost on him that they never invited him to hang out with them outside of school. The first two times he heard on a Monday morning that they'd all gotten together and had a party the Saturday before, he ignored it. The third time it happened, he started to complain about it, as politely as he could, to the only person who seemed to still be listening to him. Eli. Eli just said, as always, "_Come back to Dalton_." Instead Blaine replied, "_How many more days are left until it's Thanksgiving?_" And Eli said, "_A lot_."

Brittany at least indirectly helped Blaine by introducing him to Sam when he ran against her for class president, while he was trying to make his life so busy he wouldn't think about Kurt as often. Obviously, it wasn't the first time he and Sam met, but they consequently became sort of friends, which they hadn't been before Brittany 'introduced' them. Blaine was grateful. He still hadn't met Eli in real life. Their friendship was chained to Facebook. So having Sam around, in real life, to talk to, was a comfort.

When they won the presidency and vice presidency, he called Kurt. And he knew Kurt had pressed the ignore button. He'd called Kurt so often he knew it took his phone a certain amount of times to ring before it went to voicemail, or if it was off, it wouldn't ring at all. It wouldn't ring one and a half times, and then go to voicemail, without an ignore button intervening. That was common sense.

He shouldn't have taken it so personally. He knew Kurt had an internship that meant more to him than almost anything else, that it rendered him busier than he'd ever been before, and that the hours were erratic and that it was entirely possible he was working, or in a meeting with his boss, and that he just couldn't talk to Blaine then. But it was out of Blaine's hands, at that moment, to be calm and logical. It felt like being punched in the stomach, or slapped in the face.

Blaine stopped in his tracks and froze when it happened. When Artie asked about Kurt's reaction to the news, it felt like someone else took over his ability to speak and lied in response. What was happening? He never lied to anyone. All he knew now was that secrets were being kept, and things were being hidden, and there were reasons to be angry and guilty at the same time, and that something bad was happening.

He sank into that booth next to Sam and tried to explain it, but didn't get as far as the problem actually went. Besides, Sam was mooning over Brittany and was not really listening.

Blaine was too hurt to even attempt to call or text Kurt the next day. He assumed, naively, that Kurt would call him first and apologize.

That following morning he'd slept in a little, allowed to miss the first half of school because he had a doctor appointment. He remembered promising Kurt, at one point before he left, they'd call each other twice a day, just because Kurt was so worried about Blaine's health. That hadn't even lasted a month. Kurt had no idea he was going to the doctor that day.

He was combing his hair when his phone alerted to a new message. He figured it was an apologetic Kurt, but it wasn't. It was Eli who asked him how he was feeling that day. "_Going to the doctor_," Blaine told him. Eli said, "_Let me know how it goes_."

—

After the appointment he got into his car, intending to go straight home. He couldn't face school after that. His parents would never know anyway. They couldn't even be bothered to drive him to the doctor's office. But his hands were shaking, and he wasn't breathing properly, so he decided to take a couple of minutes before driving. He checked his phone and saw there was still no word from Kurt. But now he wanted to talk to him so badly it didn't matter to him, for the moment, that he was trying to give him the silent treatment.

Kurt actually answered, but said all in one breath, "Hi, I'm so busy right now, are you okay?"

Blaine dropped his forehead to the steering wheel and took a deep breath, trying to calm himself. Kurt's voice and steady breathing. That was all he needed. He didn't reply.

"Blaine? Did you butt dial me?"

"N— no," he said finally. "I'm here."

"What's wrong?" Kurt asked, but not with a particularly sympathetic tone. He asked it in a way that implied he was really asking, What do you want from me?

"Kurt," Blaine said. "Do you think you could come back soon? Like, this weekend?"

"This weekend? Why?"

Blaine didn't want to, or couldn't, say. "Could you?"

"Blaine… hang on, I have to put you on hold," Kurt said.

He waited. A tear he didn't know had been forming dripped down to his chin and fell to his thigh.

"Blaine," Kurt sighed, coming back a moment later. "I can't. I literally just got this internship and, like pay, it also doesn't come with vacation time."

Blaine put his free hand to his closed eyes. "Okay."

"Okay? What happened to our deal about holidays, anyway? I'll be there for Thanksgiving."

"I know."

"I miss you, too, Blaine, but we're going to get through it. I just—"

"Did you ignore my phone call last night?" Blaine cut him off. "I mean, did you actually push ignore?"

"What?" Kurt asked. "No."

"If you were too busy with work, you would have just shut your phone off completely. But it rang one and a half times. Your phone was on, you just didn't want to talk to me."

"Blaine! Why are you psychoanalyzing a missed phone call? I didn't ignore you."

"What were you doing last night?"

"I was at a company party thing. Maybe you called the wrong number."

"It was your voice. It was your voicemail."

"Well, maybe my phone is acting weird. I did not ignore you, Blaine. I promise. I really have to go. I'll call you later."

Blaine took a deep breath and didn't hear when Kurt hung up. "I love you," he said. But Kurt was already gone.

At dinner he asked his parents to take him to his next doctor appointment. They said they were too busy to before he even told them when it was.

He called Cooper after dinner. Cooper told him he couldn't come back to town on such short notice, and to ask Kurt. "I'm sure Kurt will, if you explain it to him. Take some money from Dad and pay for his ticket. Dad won't notice."

He called Sam after Cooper. It rang four times, and went to voicemail, exactly what happens when people genuinely don't answer their phones. He hung up halfway through Sam's voicemail impression of George W. Bush, not wanting to leave a message.

He called Nick after Sam. Nick actually answered. "What are you doing this weekend?" Blaine asked him.

"Going to New York," Nick gushed. "My mom's going for a business trip and she said I could come with her if I promise not to order room service all weekend."

So Blaine didn't even bring it up. He went to the last phone number he knew he should call, and called it.

It rang once. "Blaine? Am I dreaming, or is this actually happening?"

Blaine smiled despite himself. "It's actually happening. What's up?"

"Oh, I'm just swooning because Blaine Anderson is calling me," Eli replied. "What's up with you? How was the doctor?"

"Awful." He turned the words carefully over in his mind before he said them. "I have to have minor invasive and exploratory tests done this weekend."

"Invasive and exploratory are definitely not my favorite words," Eli said.

"They're not mine either. And I'm bummed because I hate my family, and my family hates me, and they won't drive me to the appointment and back. The doctor says I can't drive myself afterward. It's looking like I'm going to take a city bus at this point."

"What about Kurt?"

"New York."

"Yeah, but… well, what about your brother?"

"L.A."

Eli sighed. "This just won't do. I actually know someone who would like to take you and who has a nice and reliable vehicle to top it off."

"Who?" Blaine smiled, even though he knew what he was doing was wrong. He knew Eli had a crush on him, and this was the epitome of leading someone on. But he was desperate and alone.

"Me!"

"But it's in just a few days. I'm sure you already have plans."

"I already canceled them. Well, in my heart. I'll literally cancel them when we hang up."

Blaine chewed on his lip in thought. "Eli, don't take this the wrong way, or anything. But I've been thinking, about you, and I sort of, maybe, get the impression that you might like me. Like me, like me." He didn't know how to say it without sounding like he was in fifth grade. "I don't mean to be presumptuous, I don't actually think everyone I befriend is in love with me, I swear. And I don't even know if you're gay, I mean, we've spent so much time talking about Kurt and I that I can't remember a time we ever talked about people you like. Or might be with." He paused.

"That was a very conjunctive question. Where should I start? Of course I like you-like you, I'd check the yes box of any note you passed me. If everyone who befriends you isn't in love with you they are blind and idiotic. I'm not necessarily gay, I'm not necessarily anything, I'm free from labels. I love and sleep with whomever I want. Usually. And I'm not with anyone right now."

"Okay…" Blaine said slowly. "But I'm—"

"But you're with Kurt, who is your be all and end all, your soulmate, and you will never not be with Kurt, right?"

"Right," Blaine answered, frowning at his fingernails, not sure if he believed himself.

"That is, if one believes that the whole soulmate thing always works out, or is even real. And you already know my opinion on that. I don't believe in soulmates."

"I know." Blaine knew Eli subscribed to same anti-soulmate sentiments as Finn, but maybe even more vigorously than Finn.

"I do believe in having a lot of really fantastic sex with people I have a real connection with, and I've been completely infatuated with you since the first time we talked. Typed."

Blaine put his head back against the wall. "But we can't have a lot of sex, Eli. We can't do anything. I just need you to be my friend. For you to be on my side."

"I am your friend, and I am on your side. Haven't I been, thus far?"

"Yes. You have."

"I'm not even the one who brought it up, it was you. I can be the perfect friend. I can keep how much I want to fuck you silly all to myself. And you can keep saying no. It's your prerogative."

Blaine closed his eyes and took a moment before answering. "I just need you to drive me to the hospital, and back home, and bring me juice and shit. I do like you, Eli, and I don't want this to be weird."

"It's not weird," he said.

"I don't have feelings for you, though. I want to be clear about it. I'm, like, stupidly loyal to my boyfriend."

"I understand."

"So, what's your decision? I'll understand if you can't actually cancel your plans, or whatever." He was sure Eli was going to give up on him, too. People always wanted something he was apparently unable to give them.

"I'm still in, of course. I'm there for you. What time on Saturday?"

Blaine opened his eyes again, surprised. "Three."

"See you then."

Blaine hung up and sunk lower into his bed. The sun had gone down a while ago, and he hadn't bothered to get up and turn a light on. It was too early to sleep, but he didn't want to move.

He also didn't want to think, especially about how he had the slightest hint of an erection since Eli talked about fucking him. It wasn't sexy, it was just kind of gross, wasn't it? At least it wasn't something Kurt would ever say. Being turned on by it was just because he'd practically been living as a celibate since New York. He was usually too sad about Kurt to jerk off to the thought of him.

He picked up his phone and texted Kurt. "_I miss you. I miss fooling around with you._"

Kurt replied a minute later. "_Me too. Thanksgiving_."

Blaine rolled his eyes and threw the phone to his desk. He didn't want to think about it anymore. He crawled under the blankets and opened his legs and touched himself to the thought of his last time with Kurt, forgetting about Eli completely. Even if Eli had brought it on in the first place. That wasn't important.


	6. Chapter 6

"How do you feel?" Eli asked, steering Blaine in a wheelchair through the hospital parking lot.

"I feel drunk," Blaine answered, and lolled his head back to look up at the gloomy, cloudy sky. Impending doom, one might say. "Can you get drunk off pain medication?"

"You can be inebriated, in any case," Eli said. "I'll get drunk with you and we'll make a night of it."

"Okay," Blaine nodded, which made his head feel funny. "But no. I can't drink anymore."

"I'm not going to make you drink, I'm saying _I'm_going to drink. I'm not quite that evil and irresponsible. Don't you trust me?"

"I don't know. I probably shouldn't."

"Of course you should," Eli smiled at him. He helped Blaine into the car, he drove him safely home. He helped him up the stairs, an arm around his waist, and went as slowly up them as Blaine asked him to. He tucked him into bed and brought him the television remote, he made him a sandwich in the empty Anderson kitchen. "I would have brought you a flower, but I don't know where to find one," he said.

Blaine took about two bites of the sandwich before he fell asleep, and slept until late the next day.

He opened his eyes to darkness. He was sure it couldn't still be Saturday. He felt like he'd slept a million years. It must be Sunday. He would have believed it was days later except that his parents would have woken him to go to school, or taken him to the hospital if he didn't wake up.

He listened for sounds of his parents downstairs but heard nothing. Apparently they weren't back yet. It was unsettling to wake up after such a long sleep and to be alone in the darkness.

But then he heard slow breathing coming from behind him on his bed, and for a second he thought it was Kurt. He felt lips and a nose pressed against his back and remembered sleeping curled against Kurt like that in New York. But more memories came back as he regained consciousness. He remembered Kurt telling him no, that he wouldn't come that weekend. His mind ran down the list: Kurt, Sam, Nick, Eli. It was Eli.

He rolled over to face him. He was handsome, and had nice hair, and smelled nice, and dressed well, and had a good, despite pushy, personality. He paid attention to Blaine when Kurt wouldn't. But none of it mattered to him at that moment. Even then, ten seconds before they kissed, he didn't want him.

Eli raised his eyebrows and rubbed his eyes. "You awake?"

"What are you still doing here?" Blaine asked. "You can't possibly want to sleep with me that much."

"I would have ditched you yesterday, if you were anyone else. But there's something about you, Blaine Anderson. I actually care about you." His eyes were open now, staring into Blaine's. "I didn't want to just leave you here alone."

They were only a couple of inches apart. Blaine should have sat up, or at least backed away, but he didn't move. Eli brought a hand gently to his face, traced over one of Blaine's eyebrows with the pad of his thumb.

Blaine closed his eyes. He couldn't look at him. He just wanted him to be Kurt. He just didn't want to be alone that weekend, hurt, confused, on too much medication. If he would have taken the city bus from the hospital he probably would have ended up passed out somewhere in Cleveland for two days.

When Eli's lips touched his it coincided with a wave a strong, passionate, near hatred of Kurt. Kurt had turned out to be just like everyone else in his life. His family, who only loved him when it was convenient, and forgot about him when they became too busy with other things. Like his friends at Dalton, who'd forgotten him as soon as he changed schools. Out of sight, out of mind. He told himself Kurt was, at that very moment, probably kissing one of the dozens of cute hipster boys who worked at Vogue. Boys who were so much more worth kissing because they weren't in Ohio, or high school anymore, and they didn't spend a quarter of their lives in the hospital, begging for rides or help up the stairs. They'd actually stay awake after making love to him and—

He pulled away from Eli fast, falling into an involuntary coughing fit. He wasn't sure if he was going to be sick or he couldn't breathe, but either way it came on at the thought of someone else making love to Kurt. He'd literally never considered it before. Not until he himself was kissing someone else, in bed with someone else.

And he knew he was lying to himself. Kurt hadn't done anything wrong, none of it was actually Kurt's fault. Still, he could have sworn he almost hated him, just for a second, for leaving him behind.

"Ow, ow," Eli said, holding his hand to his lip. In his haste Blaine had bit him.

"I'm sorry," Blaine said, which was the opposite of what he should have said. He should have punched him.

"It's okay," Eli put a hand on his shoulder. He pulled back the hand to his mouth and checked for blood, but there was none.

Blaine was still coughing, a little.

"I'll get you some water," Eli said, rolling out of bed.

"No, I… you should—" He wanted to say Eli should leave, but he was too nice, or pathetic, to say it. And anyway, Eli was halfway down the stairs already, ignoring his protests.

Blaine was sitting up in bed when Eli returned with a glass of water. Eli sat on the edge and handed it to him; their fingers touched.

"Is your lip okay?" Blaine asked quietly, stuck in a dark place of self hatred and not really aware of the outside world.

"Fine. It just hurt for a second. It was nothing."

They were silent for a while. Blaine stared into the water, hoping it would offer him a vision of the future, or somehow tell him the right thing to do, or something. "When I met Kurt," he said finally, "we told each other we didn't have to date, or even fall in love. We just had to be there for each other."

Eli raised his eyebrows sympathetically.

"But he moved to New York without me," Blaine went on. "He keeps saying it's just a year, we just have to make it through a year. But all he had to do was wait a year here, with me. What was I supposed to do? I couldn't ask him to stay. I just wanted him to want to stay. To insist he was going to stay, for me, without me having to ask him to. He works and he's too busy for me, he goes to parties and he's too busy for me. He doesn't have any idea I went to the hospital yesterday. True, I didn't tell him, but he would have known if he just would have stayed here. If I told him I was going to the hospital, he'd have to spend money he doesn't have, he'd lose the job he just got, he'd hate me for it. He'd be worried and hold my hand and be here for me, but he'd be mad, or disappointed, and keep it to himself. Before he left he said he was afraid to leave me because of my health, but he did it anyway, and now he doesn't even ask me how I'm feeling. You're the only one who's asked me."

Eli leaned back and rested his head on Blaine's ankles, staring up at the ceiling.

"And it's just because you want to sleep with me," Blaine said, and tried to laugh, but it came out as a sort of sob.

Eli gave him a sad look. "It is not. How many times do I have to tell you I actually care about you?"

Blaine was quiet, thinking about what he should do. He should kick out Eli. "You should go," he finally worked up the nerve to say.

Eli didn't move. "Why do you think it is," he asked, "that doing the right thing means you have to be sad and alone?"

Blaine shrugged halfheartedly. "I'm trying to be a good boyfriend."

"You are. You're doing fine. Don't be so hard on yourself."

"Were you not here a minute ago, or…?"

"Except for that." Eli looked up at him. "Do you really want me to go?"

"The real question is whether or not you should stay. And you shouldn't."

"But do you want me to go?"

Blaine couldn't answer. He just sighed and closed his eyes and held his head in his hands.

The bed shifted when Eli stood up. He might have gone. They both knew the slightest disruption in the atmosphere would change everything. Blaine didn't want to be the one to disrupt anything, but he knew he was going to before it happened, like it was inevitable and there was nothing he could do to stop himself.

He grabbed Eli's wrist before Eli had gotten very far. "Wait," he said, unable to look him in the eyes.

Eli waited, not speaking.

"I'm completely miserable," Blaine admitted, not necessarily to Eli. "And furious, too."

"You're allowed to be." Eli pulled on his hand. "Let's get out of this room, breathe some fresh air. It'll make you feel better."

Blaine couldn't move. He looked at Eli. "Let's just do it."

Eli laughed. "No, I can't now. Now I'm all depressed and kind of guilty."

Blaine ignored him. He crawled out from under the blankets and grabbed at Eli with both hands to pull him back onto the bed. He straddled him, pinned his wrists above his head like he did with Kurt once or twice, and kissed him again. He was soft and warm and exactly what Blaine wanted. Another person.

"And…" Eli said between kisses, "you're probably still… high on… pain medication and… I don't want to… take advantage of you."

Blaine was still feeling strange from the medication, but it wasn't enough to excuse the fact that he was pulling, however inefficiently, at Eli's clothes. He wasn't conscious enough to remember how clothes worked, that shirts needed to be pulled from the arms, but Eli helped. He protested in words, but contradicted himself by helping him get their shirts off. He moved next to the waistband of the sweatpants Blaine had worn to the hospital and was still wearing.

It wasn't until Eli's hand slipped into Blaine's underwear and he curled his fingers around the base of his penis that Blaine pulled away. It felt good, of course. His body wanted it. It was almost embarrassing how much his body wanted it. His heart was broken and it didn't care either way. But something else made him stop. He thought suddenly of the look on Kurt's face when he inevitably had to tell him that this had happened. It wasn't so bad when he thought about telling Kurt he kissed someone else. They'd both live through that. But now he'd have to tell him he almost slept with someone else. It was the way he knew Kurt would look at him when he told him about it that made him stop.

"I'm sorry," Blaine said again, sliding back and away from Eli. "I can't… I can't do this to him."

Eli looked down at the floor. His cheeks were flushed. Eventually he said, "Haven't you already?"

Blaine just nodded. Emotion threatened to bubble up and explode out of him, so he concentrated hard on the mundane task of finding and pulling on his shirt. "Please, just go."

Eli ran a hand through his hair and stood. He crossed the room and hesitated at the door. "I really am sorry. But you'll be okay. A breakup isn't the end of the world."

Blaine didn't reply.

"I'll call you later," Eli tried.

Blaine didn't reply.

Eli left. Blaine sat, silent and motionless, until he was snapped momentarily out of his daze by the sound of one or both of his parents arriving home. He shut and locked his bedroom door before they got the wild idea he actually wanted to speak to them.

His room was dark. The sun had gone down and he had never turned the light on. His phone, still on his desk, periodically lit up when someone called or texted him, but it took him more than an hour to find the energy or strength to look at it.

His mind had turned off. His body ran on autopilot. It performed the familiar task of reading missed texts because if it didn't, he would have screamed and sobbed and destroyed all the furniture in the house instead.

He was so sure that Eli was sending him the messages that his mind didn't even register that there were several from Kurt until he read them all twice.

"_I haven't heard from you in forever,_" the first one said. It was from three days ago. "_It's been crazy busy at work. I could tell something was bothering you earlier, and I'm sorry I didn't listen. I'm officially a bad boyfriend. Please tell me now. I'm listening. Call me._"

The next few were from the day he went to the hospital. They started out with a couple of "_You haven't replied, am I stupid to worry?_" to a couple of "_I'm just going to text you about really boring things like there's nothing wrong, to ease my mind. I just got my first falafel from a cart. I'm converted_," and another about seeing two rats in the subway. "_I don't know if they were fighting or playing. I'm going with playing. Or were they mating?_" And three worried ones, "_If you don't call me in the next ten minutes I'm calling the police. Or Cooper. Or your father. Or all three._" There were three more from earlier that day, while he'd slept. They just said, "_Please call me._" And there were six missed calls from Kurt, and three voicemails, which Blaine knew he couldn't listen to.

With numb fingers he dialed Kurt's number. Kurt picked it up on the first ring. "Where are you and what's wrong with you?"

Blaine intended to overcompensate and sound absolutely thrilled and giddy and fine, but didn't realize until he actually heard Kurt's voice that he just couldn't do it. He hung up, and wrote him a text instead. "_I'm sorry. I lost my phone for a few days. Just found it in my bathroom behind the sink. It's not working right. It must have gotten steam in it._" What a stupid excuse.

Kurt responded immediately. "_Then call me on another phone. Don't your parents have a landline?_"

"_I'm fine. Please don't worry_," Blaine texted back. He wasn't going to call. He turned his phone off and got back into bed, and stared at the wall until the sun came up.


	7. Chapter 7

It he had any control over the situation, Blaine would have stayed in bed forever. But he forced himself to get up and go to school on Monday. If he skipped, the school would call his parents, and he couldn't give them a reason to be mad at them. He needed a favor from them.

So he went to school. He looked like a mess and didn't speak to anyone. Sitting through glee club was simply torture, but at least he didn't have to sing anything. Some of them tried to get him to join in the background but he just glared at them.

He sat in the back of every class and didn't hear a word any of his teachers said all day. He drove himself home, followed the speed limit exactly, and left the radio off. When he parked in front of his house that afternoon he worked up a little courage, enough to check his phone again.

Kurt had sent two more messages. The first said, "_That's nice to hear but I don't know if I believe you. I know you're mad at me for not calling you much, recently. I'm sorry. But don't give me the silent treatment. I thought you might have gotten sick again, you know…_" The second said, "_By the way, were you smoking? I took a five minute power nap yesterday, around seven or something. I dreamt I was smoking a cigarette, and I woke up coughing like crazy. I blame you._"

Blaine raised his eyes from the screen and remembered coughing in the middle of kissing Eli, coughing so hard that he bit Eli's lip. Without replying, he put his phone in his bag and went inside.

At dinner he said to his parents, "I have a question." It was the first thing he'd said out loud in more than 24 hours.

They paused, mid-salt shake, mid-butter spread, and looked at him.

"I…" He paused. He hadn't been able to come up with any good excuse, so he tried to be honest. "I need to see Kurt. I need to tell him something in person. If I went to New York on Saturday morning and came back Sunday, I wouldn't miss any sc—"

"No," they said in unison, looking at him like he was crazy. Which he was. He didn't even blame them for saying no. But what else could he do?

Well, he did have a back up plan. He just wished they wouldn't make him do it.

At three in the morning, Friday morning, he bought himself a roundtrip ticket to New York online with his father's credit card. On Saturday he didn't even have to lie and say he was going to spend the night at someone's house (Sam's, he'd planned on saying,) because his parents weren't home to see him go.

He had a seat in the very back of the plane, so he boarded first, and had time while other passengers settled in to do one last thing. He called Cooper.

"I'm on a plane to New York," he told his brother.

"Do Mom and Dad know?"

"No. Not yet."

Cooper sighed. "Are you staying forever?"

"No, I don't think so. I don't think Kurt will let me."

"…Why not?" Cooper asked, picking up on the hint that something was wrong.

Blaine closed his eyes. In the row in front of him, a baby screamed. "Because I'm going to New York to tell him in person that I cheated on him."

Cooper was quiet for a while. Then he said, "I'm sorry… _what_?"

Blaine gripped a knee with his free hand. His palms began to sweat. "I said—"

"I know what you said, Blaine. What the hell is wrong with you?"

He swallowed thickly. "You're going to hate me for it, too?"

"Of course I am. Do you have any idea how much shit I went through, _how hard I worked_, to find him for you, to convince him to come visit you in the hospital when he didn't have any idea who you even were?"

"Yeah, I know. I know." All Blaine had been thinking about since Eli left was a combination of nothing and the first time Kurt came to his hospital room and held his hand. How hard Blaine had struggled against the laws of physics or biology or whatever, to squeeze Kurt's hand through his sleep, to let him know he knew he was there, and that he heard him. That he'd always been waiting for him. But that was when Blaine believed they'd be perfect together. Not states apart, barely speaking, hanging by a thread.

"And wasn't it, like, yesterday that you called crying to me because you thought he was cheating on you?"

"I thought he had a crush on someone else," Blaine said, still hating the thought of Chandler. "I didn't think he was sleeping with someone else."

"What does that even mean? What am I supposed to infer from that? That it's worse to have a crush on someone than it is to sleep with someone? I'm pretty sure Kurt has a crush on _me_, Blaine. That doesn't mean—"

"I know, I know!" Blaine said, verging on yelling.

Cooper attempted to shift the tone of the conversation. "So, what, are you going to break up with him?"

"No, I'm going to apologize and beg him to forgive me." The flight attendants began their safety presentation, and announced that all cell phones must be turned off. Blaine ignored it. "Do you think he will?"

"No, I don't," Cooper said simply. "Why should he? What would you do, if he came up to you at school and told you he cheated on you?"

"I wouldn't be surprised," Blaine answered, thinking of all the imaginary hipster guys at Vogue that Kurt was probably in love with. "But I don't think he's going to expect it from me."

"I'm sure he's not."

Blaine blinked. A flight attendant came quickly and purposefully toward him, a stern look on her face. "Thanks for the pep talk. Talk to you later." He hung up.

—

It took two hours after arriving in New York for Blaine to find a flower place that would actually assemble a bouquet of red and yellow roses, but he finally made it to Kurt's front door with them.

After he knocked, the door opened and he peeked over them to see… Rachel. His face fell.

Her eyes widened at the sight of him. "Have you talked to Finn yet?" was the first thing she had to say to him.

"Um, no?" This was not going as planned.

She frowned.

"Blaine!" Kurt yelled from somewhere inside. He ran to him, indelicately pushed Rachel out of the way, and jumped on top of him, half crushing the flowers in the process.

But Blaine didn't care. He was just happy, and complete, and healed, to have Kurt in his arms again. He was sure if Kurt hadn't left, or if Blaine had gone with him, they wouldn't have had any problems. They would have been perfect together. They were always perfect together. They were just abysmal apart.

After an appropriate amount of time had passed, Kurt tried to pull away from Blaine, to smile and talk to him, but Blaine wouldn't let him go. Kurt laughed a little awkwardly, but indulged him, and squeezed him tighter. "What are you doing here?"

Blaine kept his eyes shut and breathed him in. His face had landed somewhere between Kurt's shoulder and neck and that was where he wanted to stay. He sighed. "I have to tell you something," he mumbled against Kurt's sweater.

"Do you want to go get coffee and talk?" Kurt asked.

"No," Blaine shook his head. "Not in public."

"Oh," Kurt said, mildly worried. "My room?"

Blaine took a deep breath and nodded and finally allowed Kurt to pull away from him, to lead him by the hand to his room.

He collapsed on his back onto Kurt's bed, and Kurt crawled over him, leaning on his elbows, to look him in the eyes. "What's going on?"

"I'm stealing time," Blaine whispered.

"What do you mean?"

"I just want a few more seconds to look at you, to be this close to you, before… before it's all over."

Kurt dropped his head. "Blaine," he said, "you're starting to freak me out." He looked at him again. "Did you hear something from the doctors? Are you… okay?"

"I'm fine. I mean, I'm fine as far as anyone knows. I'm not going to die, or anything. Anytime soon."

"Then what are you talking about?"

"We're about one minute away from breaking up," Blaine said. "Don't you want to prolong it?"

Kurt raised an eyebrow. "You're breaking up with me?" He didn't sound entirely convinced.

"No, you're going to break up with me."

Now Kurt looked like he was trying not to smile. "Oh? Want to bet?"

Blaine turned his eyes up toward the ceiling, trying not to think about Eli or burst into tears. "Not really."

"Did your parents give you an ultimatum, or something? How hard would it really be to pretend like we broke up for a few months until you move out here and—"

"Kurt," Blaine cut him off. "It's not my parents. It's me."

"I'm sure there's nothing you could have done to make me break up with you," Kurt said. He sat up, and pulled Blaine up too. "Just tell me. Whatever it is. I'm sure it's not as bad as you think."

Blaine stared at him, silent for a while. "Just in case this is the last time we're sort of happy together, for the rest of our lives, do you want to tell me anything?"

Kurt sighed at the melodrama and leaned in to kiss him, a slow, sweet, languid kiss. Blaine knew he shouldn't let him, not without knowing Eli had been kissing him days earlier, but he couldn't push him away. He told himself it was a goodbye kiss. Maybe the last kiss from Kurt Hummel he'd ever get.

"Now tell me," Kurt said.

Blaine gave in. "I was with someone. I almost slept with him. I didn't actually, but what difference does it make?"

Kurt backed away from him a few inches, probably subconsciously, and bit his lip. "A big difference. You could have seen a cute guy across the street and thought about sleeping with him, or you could have—"

"Or I could have made out with someone in my bed in various states of undress, which is what actually happened. I know you don't want to hear it, but you have to know what happened. I came here to tell you everything."

Kurt stared at him. Blaine knew that he was falling apart. He knew he'd just put major, maybe unmendable cracks in his heart, in his trust, in his innocence. When they'd first met it was Kurt's naivety that Blaine had loved so much, that made him seem so precious, and sweet, and worth protecting. And now he could see that he was ruining him.

"Who was it?" Kurt asked finally.

"It doesn't ma—" Blaine started to say, but that put the worst look of all on Kurt's face. This horrible thing had already happened behind his back, he'd already been taken advantage of. It would hurt him even worse if Blaine made it seem like he was keeping secrets about it, or that Kurt wasn't worth telling the details to. "You don't know him," Blaine corrected himself. "I barely know him. We met on Facebook. We never met in real life until last week."

Kurt put his head in his hands and hid his eyes behind his fingers. Blaine knew he was crying.

"Listen to me, please, before you tell me to leave," Blaine said, knowing Kurt would have kicked him out by then if he had any control over his voice. "I had to go to the hospital last weekend—"

Kurt's head shot back up. "Blaine!" he yelled. "I knew something was going on with you, I knew all your weird secretive moodiness had something to do with it! Don't you realize you _have_ to tell me when something happens to you?"

"I know, but—" Blaine tried.

"If something happens to you, it'll happen to _me_ too," Kurt cried.

"I _know_," Blaine said again. "But—"

"But what?"

"But if I would have told you I was going in for tests, you would have come back to Lima to go with me."

"And you didn't want me to? You asked me to come back that day on the phone."

"And you said no," Blaine pointed out.

"You didn't tell me why!" Kurt yelled.

"Why should I have to tell you why?" Blaine yelled back, which was not how he wanted to have this conversation. "Why do you think I'd ask you to come back for some stupid, frivolous reason? It was going to cost you money, it was going to make you lose your job, and when you put me on hold I realized going to have tests done wasn't worth it, either. It was just as stupid and frivolous as anything. It wasn't as important as your life here."

Kurt glared at him.

"All that was going to happen was I'd get a letter in the mail three days later that said, 'You appear to be healthy, have a good day.' And that's exactly what happened. You never would have had to know anything about it."

"If only it hadn't somehow led to you sleeping with someone on Facebook," Kurt said.

"I asked my parents, I asked my brother, I asked everyone I could think of if they were free to take me, and no one was. So I called this guy. I said I just needed a ride. I had to take a lot of medication, and I was completely out of it. He helped me out of the car and to my front door, and before I even realized it he was inside and helping me into my bed."

Kurt was making a face, about to interject, probably with the words 'non-consensual,' but Blaine held up a hand to stop him.

"Nothing happened that night. I just fell asleep. And the next day I was more awake, and more aware, and… and he was still there."

"He was still there," Kurt repeated.

"Yes, he slept over."

"He slept over," Kurt repeated. "In your bed."

"In my bed, next to me. I had no idea he was going to stay. And I asked him why he was still there, and he gave me this big speech about how he cares about me and that someone—" Blaine stopped, too late.

"That someone what?" Kurt asked, furious.

"That… someone… should have been there with me. That I shouldn't have been alone."

"Did you tell _anyone_ else that you had to go to the hospital? Or did you just make them all think you wanted to go shopping for bow ties at the Lima mall? Was he the only one you told?"

Blaine thought about it. "I guess, but—"

Kurt put a hand to his forehead. "This is insane. Anyone would have taken you if you explained it to them. The entire glee club would have. _Mr. Schuester_ would have, he would have thrown his jacket over puddles so you didn't get your feet wet."

Blaine didn't know what to say.

"So you told Facebook guy, and only Facebook guy, and he told you all about how he cares about you and that no one else does. And then you made out and almost slept with him. Right?"

Blaine nodded weakly. "Right. But… I thought you hated me." Kurt was about to yell at him again but he continued anyway. "And I thought I hated you, too."

This rendered Kurt speechless, his mouth frozen open.

"But I really just hated myself, or the situation, or both. I didn't want to be alone. I didn't want you to go to New York."

"You told me to go to New York," Kurt said, quiet now.

Blaine looked at him. "I know. But I was lying." It felt better to admit that to Kurt than it did to admit that he had cheated. Lying about wanting Kurt to go to New York was what had nearly ruined his life in the first place. Ever since Kurt starting talking about going, Blaine wanted to tell him not to. And now he finally had the chance. Of course, it wasn't going to make a difference now.

They stared at each other for a while, waiting, trying to recover, not sure what to do next. Finally Kurt said, "Is that it?"

"No," Blaine said. "I'm sorry. I was wrong. I wish it hadn't happened. And I love you. Even when I thought I hated you, I loved you more than anything else in the world. And I always have, and I always will."

Kurt blinked. "Is that it?"

Blaine nodded. "That's it."

"Then you can go."

Blaine moved slowly, got up from the bed slowly, and walked to the door slowly, He wanted to give Kurt enough time to change his mind and pull him back and forgive him, but, of course, Kurt wasn't going to change his mind.


	8. Chapter 8

"Why are you calling me?" Blaine answered the phone.

"Hello to you, too," Eli replied. "I don't know, because we're friends?"

"We're not friends anymore."

"Why not, too much sexual tension?"

"Because you're the reason my life is ruined, and I could never not think about that when I think about you. And because it would kill Kurt to know I'm even speaking to you."

"Whipped," Eli breathed to himself. "What are you up to?"

"I'm at an audition. Are you listening to me? We are never speaking again. Stop calling me."

"Fine. What audition?"

Blaine frowned. "I'm going to be Sandy in Grease." He hung up.

—

"Blaine! Blaine!" someone yelled from down the hall. It turned out to be Finn. "I'm a couple days late, but congratulations on Teen Angel. I'm glad you're going to be in the musical. I think the part will be good for you, I mean, you're totally angelic. But not in a weird way. Just in a regular way. Artie and I wish you would have been Danny, but it's cool."

Blaine was only half listening him. Somewhere in his mind he heard Rachel's voice in New York, telling him to talk to Finn. To be friends with him. To help him. "Yeah," he said. "I probably can't come to any rehearsals outside of school, though. I'm still grounded for going to New York without permission, and my parents still don't consider glee club academically… necessary."

"You don't need to practice," Finn waved him off. "Anyway, I have a confession to make."

Blaine gave him a wary sideways glance.

"I was sitting there with Artie during your audition, watching you do 'Hopelessly Devoted to You,' and Artie said, 'He's totally singing this about Kurt.' And I realized you were. And you were doing such a good job, and you were so passionate… and sad…" He trailed off.

Blaine turned from his locker to face Finn, and waited for him to start making sense.

"So, anyway," Finn snapped out of it, "I… filmed it?"

Blaine frowned harder, which somehow turned out to be possible. "What?"

"Just on my cellphone, not with a professional camera, or anything. And I sent it to Kurt."

Blaine's heart almost thumped out of his chest. "_What_? What did he say?"

Finn took his phone from his pocket and read a text from Kurt in monotone. "Devotion is a strange way of putting it. I had just stopped crying and now I'm crying myself to sleep every night to that video, thanks. Don't tell Blaine I said this." Finn looked up and blinked confusedly, only then realizing he'd broken the rule.

"Oh my god," Blaine said, and tried to collapse into his locker. He got one arm and his head in.

"But that's a good thing!" Finn said. "If he didn't care, he wouldn't be crying. We want him to cry, I guess. It means he cares."

"No, we don't want him to cry," Blaine said from inside his locker. "We want him to be happy."

"Well, he's never gonna be happy if he's not with you."

"That's not necessarily true," Blaine said, sinking lower and lower.

"He loves you, and you're totally going to get back together soon. I just wanted you to know I'm on your side."

Blaine couldn't move or respond. He figured after a minute Finn had probably ambled away, so he pulled himself out and went looking for him, guiltily. He found him down an adjoining hallway. "Finn…"

Finn looked at him.

"Thank you."

He smiled. "No problem."

"I'm on your side, too."

He nodded. "Um, okay. Thanks."

Blaine sighed. "Do you want to, like, hang out, or something? Some day?" He did not know how to ask faux straight people to hang out without it sounding like he was asking him out on a date. Which he definitely wasn't. He had promised Rachel he'd help him. And he was Kurt's brother. Maybe someday, if Blaine allowed himself to consider it for even a second, Finn would be his brother in law. They should be friends.

"Sure," Finn agreed, not freaked out at all.

Something clicked into place in Blaine's brain suddenly. He practically had an epiphany. "My brother and I are meeting tomorrow for lunch at Breadstix. You should come."

"I should? With your brother?" Okay, now Finn thought it was weird. But Blaine didn't care at that point. He had a plan.

"Yeah. Noon. Cool?"

"Cool," Finn said, but he was still trying to figure it out. "See you."

—

That night Blaine called Kurt for probably the five millionth time since they broke up and left him a message. "This is probably the five millionth time I've called you," he said, "and I know you're purposefully not answering. It's okay. I know you're not ready to talk to me, and I know I don't deserve to ever talk to you again. But I don't want you to think I've forgotten you, or that I'm giving up on you, or that I've gotten over you. I've sent you a hundred little gifts and I've said I'm sorry so many times I know it sounds meaningless now. I don't know at what point I become desperate or tacky or a stalker, but it was probably a long time ago. So I'm calling to say I'm giving it a break. Not because I'm giving up, but because I know you need to breathe and think and live without me bothering you all the time. If you ever want to talk, you know how to get ahold of me. I'll listen any day, any time. For the last time, for now, I'm sorry and I still love you."

He hung up. Somewhere downstairs the front door was thrown open and Cooper announced to the whole house that he was home.

—

"I've never been here in the daytime before," Finn said, looking wide eyed around Breadstix the next day. He sat next to Cooper, and Blaine sat across from them both. He had insisted. He had something to tell them. He needed to see them clearly. "I always thought it was just a place to bring your dates."

"Aren't you Kurt's brother?" Cooper asked, and raised an eyebrow at Blaine. He mouthed, "A little weird?"

"Shut up," Blaine frowned at him.

Finn smiled and shifted uncomfortably in his seat.

Blaine was polite enough to wait until their food arrived before making his announcement. "So," he smiled at them. "I brought you two here for a reason."

Cooper rolled his eyes. Finn froze, pasta halfway to his mouth.

"I am completely miserable," Blaine said, still smiling, but a little sadder now.

"Congratulations," Cooper deadpanned.

"And then I realized something, yesterday. There are some people in the world who are even more miserable than I am. And maybe that's what I should focus my attention on. If I can't make myself happy, maybe I can help other miserable people feel better about themselves."

"Like starving kids in Africa?" Finn asked.

"No," Blaine shook his head. "I mean the two of you."

They stared at him.

"For the sake of privacy, I could have talked to you both separately, but it occurred to me you're both miserable for the same reason. And to be efficient, I can fix you both at once."

"Fix us?" they asked in unison.

"You're both unhappy because you're both hiding your sexuality."

Finn blinked at him and the pasta fell off his fork, but he still didn't move. Cooper put his hands on the table, obviously angry. "This is bullshit, Blaine."

"No, you're bullshit," Blaine yelled, a little too loudly for Breadstix. He dropped the smiling pretense. "I've known my whole life that you're gay, or at the very least bi, and you've never told anyone."

Cooper tried to say something, but Blaine wouldn't let him.

"You've never told our parents, anyway, and—"

"Our parents? Why would I? I'd be lying."

"You would not, you'd be telling the truth for once in your life, and you would have protected me. You could have saved me from all the suffering I've gone through if you would have come out to them first. They would have accepted it from you, because they think you're perfect no matter what you do, and then they wouldn't have even noticed me. We both would have been happier."

"Blaine, this is exactly what you always do. This is exactly how you pushed Kurt away."

"You just refuse to be a good brother."

"You're making this up, Blaine!" Cooper yelled at him. "You invent problems and then resent people for not seeing them, too. But it's all in your head."

"Are you telling me I'm crazy?" Blaine asked and looked at Finn to back him up, but Finn was still frozen and had recently turned white.

"No, you're not crazy. You're just unhappy and you want to make everyone else as unhappy as you are. But it's just going to make you feel even worse when you realize you've finally pushed everyone away. When you realize you're _really_ alone," Cooper replied. He stood and gave Blaine a moment to come up with a good retort, which Blaine couldn't do, so he walked away and left the restaurant without another word.

Blaine glowered at the front doors of Breadstix for a while, after Cooper had disappeared through them. Eventually he remembered Finn. Finn was frowning, and pushing his pasta around his plate with his fork, and might have been blushing.

"I'm sorry," Blaine said to him, hoping he sounded as sincere as he felt. "I didn't bring you here to yell at you, just my brother. I'm not mad at you. And I didn't mean to out you in front of a stranger, but Cooper doesn't know anyone we know, and he wouldn't tell a soul. He probably wasn't even entirely aware you were sitting there. Most of his brain capacity is occupied thinking about himself."

"Did Kurt tell you? About my soulmate?" Finn asked after a while.

"Kurt used to tell me everything, because I used to be trustworthy," Blaine said. "I could have found a more delicate way to tell you I knew, but it was never going to be easy for me to just… tap you on the shoulder and say, 'hey, by the way, I know all about your darkest secret and I think you should talk to me about it.'"

Finn shrugged. "What do you want me to say?"

Blaine faltered. "Nothing, if you don't want to. But now that Kurt's not here, I just thought you should know you can talk to me about it. If you wanted to." He wanted to point out this was all Rachel's idea, but he decided not to throw her under the bus, just then. He'd already upset and betrayed enough people for one day. Or one lifetime.

"Kurt's not dead, I can still talk to him on the phone," Finn said. "Just because he won't talk to you anymore doesn't mean I can't talk to him."

Blaine dropped his gaze to the table and tried not to show how much Finn's words stung him. "Fine."

"Plus, he's my brother. You're just…" Finn stopped.

Blaine deduced whatever word Finn could have used couldn't have been a positive one. He nodded. "Point taken. Sorry, again." He started to slide out of the booth, to leave the same way his brother had gone, angry and in the middle of the meal.

But Finn stopped him. "Blaine," he said, and waited until Blaine sat again and looked at him. "You really are going about everything the wrong way."

Blaine didn't respond.

"So, do you have any advice for me? What should I do?" Finn asked.

"Whatever you want to do," Blaine said.

Finn blinked at him. "That's it?"

"I mean it's up to you," Blaine tried again. "You have control of your own life. You don't have to let a stranger's name on a stupid piece of paper dictate your life. It's your life. You should be with people who make you happy. Not hiding from someone because he's a boy. Not looking for someone forever because you don't know where or who they are, and maybe never finding them. Not letting go of good people who love you because the stupid piece of paper says they're not the right ones. You know who's right for you. Not a piece of paper."

Finn thought about it. "Do you wish you never met Kurt?"

"No. Of course not."

"It would have saved you a lot of pain, wouldn't it?"

"It would have kept me from a lot of happiness."

Finn sighed. "As long as you don't do anything like this… ever again… I guess it'd be cool to have you to talk to. You know… about everything."

Blaine nodded. "I'll try not to."

—

"I heard through the grapevine you're not doing so well," Sam said on the phone that night.

Blaine leaned his head against the wall and shut his eyes. "I threw a fit at Breadstix and offended my brother, Finn, and everyone sitting within earshot of the yelling."

"Well, what's going on? Have you talked to Kurt?"

"No," Blaine swallowed a lump in his throat. "I haven't."

"Then what happened?"

"Nothing really happened with Finn, he was just a witness," Blaine said, not really lying, just slightly altering the truth. "And I blamed my brother for every problem I've ever had, starting from birth. He didn't seem to appreciate it."

"Is he really the reason?"

"No. Yes, kind of. He's just an asshole."

"He seemed nice that day in school. I could tell you were mad at him then, too. But I thought you made up?"

"We make up all the time, and then he's an asshole again."

"You have to get to the root of the problem," Sam said wisely.

Blaine laughed, annoyed at even having to think about Cooper, and tried to think of when he started to basically hate him. "He moved out when I was in junior high. When I was just starting to be bullied. And I remember this guy was shoving me around, and I told him to just wait until my brother found out, that he'd come and kick his ass. And I felt really empowered, because I said 'ass' pretty convincingly. And then I went home and found Cooper all packed up. And before I knew it, he was in L.A., and my parents were never around, and I had to learn how to stick up for myself. Which was a good thing, I guess, but I would have preferred it if someone else did it for me."

"Did he get up and leave today while you were yelling at him?" Sam asked.

"Yes!" Blaine kind of yelled, glad that Sam could see the pattern. "He always leaves when I need him to be there. To yell at and… berate."

"He probably doesn't realize that it hurt you when he moved away. You should just try to be nicer to him. You can't change the past, you can only try to do better starting now. Think about Kurt. You want Kurt to forgive you, to see that you're not the same person you were before. So you should forgive Cooper. Maybe it'll set off a chain of forgiving and lead to widespread world peace."

Blaine shook his head in mild awe. "You're like a philosopher and a psychologist at the same time."

Sam laughed. "Here's my last piece of advice. Um, don't look at Kurt's Facebook. At least not tonight."

"Why?!" Blaine asked, and nearly fell off the bed trying to open his laptop.

"Don't do it, man," Sam said. "Tonight you're starting over. You're going to forgive your brother, and be calmer, and nicer to everyone, and… just… peace. Remember the peace."

Blaine stared slack jawed at the screen of his computer. "_Kurt Hummel changed his relationship status to Single_," it said. And Kurt had added, "_No commentary necessary_." But there were about a dozen comments, from Rachel, to Mercedes, to Carole Hudson-Hummel, to people at McKinley Blaine was pretty sure had never even spoken to Kurt before, saying things like, "_I'll hold my tongue, then_," and, "_Blaine, Blaine, Blaine, tsk, tsk_," and "_Poor Kurtie. I'll buy you a piece of cheesecake next time you're in town. You deserve one. Or two._" There was a gangly looking preteen with the last name Hummel who lived in Florida, who must have been some kind of third cousin Blaine never knew existed, who said, "_Heard about what happened. Sucks, dude_."

"What the hell is this?" Blaine asked Sam, practically hysterical.

Sam sighed. "I told you not to look at it. Take a deep breath."

"Did Kurt send everyone he's ever met handwritten updates on our relationship? Who are these people? How does everyone know?"

"I'm sure he didn't say anything. News just travels fast. Hang on, I'll call you back in like five minutes."

They hung up. While Blaine waited he stared at the screen, watching as new comments full of gossip and spite toward him popped up in real time.

He answered wordlessly when Sam called back.

"I did an experiment," Sam said. "I called Kurt and told him I saw his Facebook, and asked what happened between you guys. He asked if I've talked to you about it, and I said no. He said nothing happened and that you're just taking a break. I asked what was up with all the anti-Blaine comments on his wall and he said he didn't know about it, and said he's going to delete them when he gets home. He sounded actually pissed that people were leaving shitty comments about you. So he's not telling anyone. You know he's not like that."

"I didn't even know we were taking a break." Blaine sighed and thumped his head against the desk and closed his eyes again. "I'm going to have to leave McKinley."

"No, you're not."

"I can never go to glee club again."

"Yes, you can."

"They loved Kurt. Everybody loves Kurt. I'm like some terrible… monster—" He stopped when his voice cracked.

"Blaine," Sam said.

"Who swooped in and kidnapped him and hurt him…"

"You're not a monster. You're just human. You made a mistake, and you're sorry for it. That's the thing, everyone in glee club can see how sorry you are. They understand. They aren't mad at you."

Blaine didn't know what to say.

"Remember," Sam said. "You're starting over. You're going to be okay. You're going to be happy. You just have to try."

Blaine nodded. "Thanks, Sam."

"Don't beat yourself up over what happened with Kurt. He knows you're sorry, too. You don't have to be miserable forever because you think he'd want you to be. If you want him back, you should be the Blaine he'd want to get back together with. Not a sobbing mess, but a happy and confident you."

Blaine thought about it. "But what if I never see him again?"

Blaine could practically hear Sam rolling his eyes. "Of course you will."

—

He took Sam's words to heart, but didn't have much time to practice being happy and nice and peaceful before Kurt, rather suddenly and without warning, showed up in his life again.

Finn had been giving him a pep talk before Grease's opening night, something about how to be more angelic. And Blaine was grateful for the musical, finally, even though he'd spent weeks hating the idea because it was full of love and romance, and he was sure his heart couldn't handle it. But being a part of it meant he could think about acting, and singing, remembering lines and the right places to stand. It took his mind off of things. Well, it took his mind off of Kurt.

And then the conversation with Finn was over, and he turned and walked away, and looked up and saw Kurt. Standing there. Like he belonged there, or like it was normal. Blaine tried to remember what Sam had told him to do, but it was just a jumbled mess that only boiled down to, 'be happy.' And he couldn't be happy. If he smiled, Kurt would know it was fake, and he couldn't smile when Kurt looked so sad himself.

So they just alternately stared at each other and avoided eye contact. All he could say was Kurt's name (to be sure Kurt was actually there and he wasn't hallucinating,) and that he didn't expect to see him, because he didn't. And that was it. Finn showed up, thankfully, to shoulder half the awkwardness between himself and Rachel. Blaine let Finn talk. He nodded sometimes when Finn said something good. He wasn't really listening. And when Finn walked away, he followed him. It was strange. It was like there was a line dividing he and Finn from Rachel and Kurt, and no one could cross it. It was like they lived in different worlds, and Blaine belonged in Finn's; a world where it was more logical to follow Finn than to stay with Kurt.

And with that in mind, he went to sing his solo. He couldn't find Kurt in the audience at first, which was a good thing. Of course he didn't want to make eye contact with him from the stage. He'd probably forget his lines instantaneously if that happened. But he couldn't stop himself from looking.

He made his way down the stairs and tried just to stare at Sugar, and if his eyes wandered he tried to keep them on Kitty and the girls around him, or if need be, on the black hole in the back of the auditorium. But he was careless. He had it half in his head that maybe Kurt didn't even stay for the performance. Maybe all he wanted to do was stand awkwardly in the vicinity of Blaine and consider it closure. Maybe he left. So Blaine slid into the booth with Sugar, overconfident, and it was then that he saw Kurt. It seemed like he was about two feet away, and of course he and Rachel ended up being at the end of the row directly in front of the part of the booth Blaine was supposed to sit at. He almost forgot his lines. For one second. But he didn't. He faltered, and probably everyone noticed, but the performance wasn't ruined. He finished. As soon as the curtain closed and everyone rushed to change the set he ran to the bathroom and tried not to hyperventilate.

He knew he had to talk to him, and he knew he couldn't do it in front of Finn and Rachel, and the entire cast and crew of Grease. Kurt would at least stay the night at his parents' house. He couldn't stand it if he knew Kurt was so close, for so long, and they never said anything to each other.

He went backstage and listened to the rest of the show from behind. And when it was over he walked the halls of McKinley, determinedly looking for Kurt.

The first confrontation happened. Blaine tried to talk and Kurt apparently didn't want to listen. He told Blaine he didn't trust him anymore, and that he didn't feel like he was home anymore, which wasn't exactly shocking but was still painful to hear. It made Blaine shut up for a moment, and Kurt used the opportunity to walk away. But that wasn't the end. Blaine wouldn't let it be the end.

He followed Kurt and Rachel to the parking lot. "Kurt," Blaine called out to his back. "You have to talk to me."

Rachel stopped and tugged on Kurt's sleeve. "He's right," she said. "You're the one who wanted to come back so badly, you're the one who said you had to talk to him. You said you couldn't stand it anymore."

Blaine waited, but Kurt wouldn't even turn around. He just stood, frozen and silent, thinking.

"We can talk in my car," Blaine offered. "Or back inside, all of the classrooms are empty."

Kurt put a hand to his face. Blaine wondered if he was crying, but when he spoke his voice was strong and unwavering. "I can't, Blaine. I thought I could, but now that I see you, I can't. I can't even look at you."

He began walking again. Rachel looked back at Blaine helplessly, and followed him.

Blaine trailed them. "How can you sleep tonight, knowing that I'm a few minutes away, waiting for you, and missing you, and needing you to talk—"

But Kurt was climbing into Rachel's car fast, and he shut the door in the middle of Blaine's speech. He seemed to argue for a moment with Rachel, and finally she pulled out of the parking spot and drove them away, leaving Blaine standing there alone.

That might have been the end, but it still wasn't. Blaine settled into bed that night fully knowing he was never going to be able to sleep. His mind raced. He tried to text friends, but they all stopped responding eventually as they went to bed. At three or four in the morning he started to play mind numbing games on his phone, waiting for the sun to rise, waiting for another day to hurry up and arrive so he could try to start over again. And that was when he got a text from Kurt.

"_Come to my dad's house if you're up_," it said. "_If you don't see this until morning, don't bother_."

Blaine practically tripped over himself getting out of bed, rushing downstairs and climbing into his car. He didn't care if he'd woken up his parents and faced another grounding.

He sped to Kurt's house, or the house Kurt used to live in. He pulled up to the curb and saw Kurt standing on the porch in his coat and boots, like he'd been standing out in the cold for a while. Blaine moved to get out of the car, but Kurt held up a hand, indicating he should stay where he was, and began walking toward the car.

Blaine thought he'd get in the passenger seat. Maybe they'd finally talk, maybe they'd just drive around in silence. Maybe Kurt would tell him to drive to someplace neither of them had ever been before, a place where they could forget the past and start all over.

But Kurt passed around the front of the car and came up to Blaine's door. Blaine moved to pull the latch but Kurt opened the door himself. In the glint of streetlight that passed over Kurt's face before he climbed in onto Blaine's lap, he could see Kurt had been crying.

Half stunned, Blaine let Kurt sob into his shoulder for a while without moving or saying anything. The first thought that eventually came to him was that Kurt felt very cold. He gently shut the car door so their sides were snug against it and turned up the heat. Then he very tentatively put his arms around Kurt and held him close.

"I hate you," Kurt finally whispered in between sniffles. But he held on to Blaine as tight as he could. He even had his fingers curled in his hair.

"I know," Blaine said. He hated to hear it, but he wasn't sure if it would be better or worse if Kurt hadn't contacted him that night at all. If he was still sitting on his bed, wide awake, wondering what Kurt was doing or thinking, knowing how close he was. "Why were you standing outside for so long?" he asked, trying to change the subject.

"I was thinking. I was trying to decide if I should call you. And waiting for you to get here."

"What if I was asleep and didn't come?"

"I knew you weren't asleep," Kurt cried, and his shoulders shook.

Blaine couldn't stand not doing something to comfort him, so without contemplating it for long, he pressed his lips to Kurt's throat and left kisses there, trailing up to his jaw. They weren't lust driven, and he had no intention except to try to calm Kurt down and get him to stop crying. Blaine wondered for a moment if Kurt might pull away and punch him, but instead he leaned into it. Blaine knew Kurt felt the same as he did, just then. They felt better, like the world made more sense, in each other's arms.

Finally Kurt pulled back a little, to look into Blaine's eyes. His own were red and small and sad. "Rachel said we shouldn't let you or Finn see us cry."

"I know I broke your heart, you don't have to try to hide it from me," Blaine told him. "If you acted like you were fine all the time, I'd know you were lying."

"I came back for closure," Kurt said. "So say something good. A finale. You're the one who tried to end it, so end it."

Blaine shook his head. "I don't think we _can_ end it."

Kurt nodded. "But I am going to be fine." He looked Blaine straight in the eyes and said without hesitation, "I'm going to get over you."

Blaine didn't know what to say. He didn't know how to convincingly beg Kurt to change his mind, so he couldn't say anything.

"I just needed you for a second," Kurt said, wiping his tears with his hands. "I don't need you anymore."

He opened the door and unsteadily climbed off of Blaine's lap and back onto the pavement of the street.

"Wait," Blaine said. Kurt turned to look at him. "If… if we're going to try to be apart for a while, if that means you're going to try to be with someone else, you need to know something."

Kurt waited, his arms crossed over his chest.

"None of this was your fault. I didn't… I didn't cheat on you—" Blaine hated to keep saying the words, but they were true, weren't they? "—Because you weren't good enough. You were more than good enough, as a person, as a boyfriend, as a partner. It was entirely my fault. I just missed you so much that I thought I could try to replace you, just for a minute. It's because of how wonderful you are that I missed you so much. Not because you were inadequate. I spent so much time trying to convince you to believe in yourself, to be confident and stand up for yourself, and you need to stay that way. Don't let people walk all over you. Don't let anyone treat you like I treated you. And if anyone tries, you have to kick them out of your life. Immediately. Completely. And never look back. You're too good for… people like me."

Kurt gave no response to this except to start crying again. He shook his head and started walking back toward the house, hiding his mouth behind his hand.

"If you need me for a second… any time in the future… let me know," Blaine said, half climbing out of the car so Kurt could hear him better. "We both know we shouldn't see each other again, but we're not regular people. You're my soulmate. I think we're always going to need each other."

But Kurt was already climbing up the porch steps.

"I'll always be there for you," Blaine said finally.

Without turning around, Kurt called back, "Like you always have been."

And Blaine knew he was being sarcastic.


	9. Chapter 9

"He said we're still best friends," Blaine counted off on his fingers, "he said he misses me, _like crazy_, and he said he loves me."

"He said he _loves_ you?" Sam asked.

"Are you sure you didn't have, like, a fever dream before we went on stage?" Finn asked.

"No!" Blaine laughed. "He actually called me and actually said all of that. Well, I said I love _him_, and he said, 'I love you, too.'"

Sam shook his head. "This is incredible. I thought I was going to have to talk you through at least ten years of pain and suffering. Now it looks like you'll be back together with him by the new year."

"I'm just amazed we had to take someone other than Blaine to the hospital," Finn said. He was still a little shaken by Marley's on stage collapse. "You don't think her mom's gonna sue me for child labor or anything, do you?"

"And he said he's coming back for Christmas," Blaine grinned, ignoring Finn. "I'm going to have to do something amazing, and beautiful, and romantic."

"No one ever collapsed under Mr. Schue's watch," Finn said, now talking to himself.

"You could get him a dolphin shaped hat," Sam offered. "Or something that's really cutting edge like that."

"No, I can't buy him something, I have to do something. Something that shows him how sorry I am. But something that also makes him happy. We really need to stop crying every time we talk. It's getting… extreme."

"It doesn't have to be made out of actual dolphins," Sam said.

"Why haven't you been in the hospital lately?" Finn asked, turning to Blaine. "It's been a really long time. And you used to be in there, like, all the time."

Blaine shrugged. "I don't know. I have new pills. Maybe they work."

"Well, make sure you don't forget to take one. I couldn't handle all the extreme crying if I had to call Kurt and tell him _you_ collapsed on stage. I'd get fired for sure if it happened twice."

—

"Hey."

"Hey?" Blaine replied. He was on the phone with Cooper. He hadn't spoken to him since he made him furiously storm out of Breadstix, so things were still weird. And Cooper had gone back to L.A. without saying goodbye. Blaine knew from experience that making amends with his brother over the phone was usually impossible.

"How was the musical? Didn't you say you were going to be in Grease?"

"It was fine. I was hardly in it, but…"

"Weren't you Danny?"

"No, I was the angel in the diner. Teen Angel. I had one scene."

"But you were the lead in West Side Story, what happened?"

"I told the guys directing it that I didn't want to be in it at all, but they made me take a little part. I didn't want to think about romance. I didn't want to think about Kurt. It didn't matter in the end, though. Kurt showed up unannounced to watch me on opening night."

"Did it mess you up?"

"No. I mean… I think I paused for a second, when I saw him. But I didn't forget the words. The show went on. A few people said the next day they didn't even notice that I screwed up. They might have been just trying to be nice, though."

"They weren't just trying to be nice. I'm sure no one noticed. There's something to say for your performance skills if the directors have to beg you to be in the play. I'm sure you were great."

Blaine sighed. "Thanks, Coop. I… I'm sorry about what happened—"

"Don't worry about it," Cooper cut him off. "We're still talking about how good of an actor you are. I think you should apply to NYADA, if that's what you really want to do. Regardless of Kurt. Regardless of if Kurt ends up attending next semester, regardless if Kurt never applies again. If you want to go, you should go."

"Well… thanks. This advice would have been more useful a month ago, which was the deadline for applying, but thank you anyway."

"Oh. Did you apply?"

Blaine bit his lip. "Yes… but… I only did it because I didn't know if I should or not. I figured I wouldn't regret applying, I just might regret not applying. And if I don't get in, I don't have to worry about it. But if I do… I don't know what I'm going to do."

"I think you should go. It's a big city. If you want to avoid Kurt you might never even see him. And if all else fails, you can always come out here to L.A.. You have a face for commercials."

Blaine smiled. "But I don't want to avoid Kurt."

"How'd it go when he came to see the musical? Did you talk?"

"Yeah, but not… effectively, about anything. He yelled at me, I talked to his back while he ignored me, and then we cried and told each other… I don't even know what. And then he left, angry, and that was it. But he just called me a few days ago and… it seems like he might be willing to be friends with me again."

"He's starting to come around," Cooper surmised.

"Obviously I'm not going to settle for just being his friend, but I'll take anything that I can get at this point. He's coming back for Christmas and he said we can hang out then."

"Good. I knew it would all work out."

"You thought he'd hate me forever," Blaine laughed. "And even though that's probably what I deserve, I'm just so happy that he's at least willing to give me another chance at being a part of his life. I think I could even take it if he tried being with someone else for a while, as long as he still talks to me, and confides in me. As long as we're building trust again, there's always hope for me, I think. For us to get back together."

"Now I don't regret finding him for you so much. But take it slow. Don't freak him out and scare him away."

"I know. I won't. Coop, please let me apologize for what I said at the restaurant."

"Fine. You're forgiven."

"It's none of my business, and I was a jerk."

"It's fine, Blaine."

"And one more thing. Thank you for finding Kurt for me."

Cooper sighed. "You say that now, now that things are looking up. I'm sure you wouldn't have said it a week ago."

"I would have. I just—" His phone beeped, signaling another call coming through.

"Just wait until something bad happens again, and—"

"Nothing bad is going to happen again," Blaine told him sternly. "Hang on a second." He switched to the other line. "Hello?"

"Hi, Blaine," Kurt said. He sounded a little shy, or at least apprehensive about actually speaking to Blaine after such a long silence.

"Hi!" Blaine said, a little too overzealous. He even sat up straight, like his posture would make a difference to Kurt's opinion of him over the phone.

"How are you?"

"I'm…" Blaine couldn't even put together a coherent sentence. "I don't know. I'm never going to get used to you calling me again."

"I know," Kurt laughed, but it was short. "Twice in two weeks. I'm getting clingy."

Blaine shook his head. All he wanted to say was, 'I love you,' a hundred times, so he didn't say anything.

"I have good and bad news," Kurt said.

"Okay."

Kurt took a deep breath. "I got into NYADA."

Blaine's eyebrows rose. "That's… that's amazing. I'm so happy for you. You deserved it from the start."

"I don't know, but thank you," Kurt told him, ever humble. "Anyway, this means I'm now responsible for thousands of dollars per semester that I didn't have to worry about before. So in an effort to save my already nonexistent bank account, I can't come back for Christmas."

Blaine slumped. "Oh."

"I know, I feel bad for telling you we could spend time together and then kind of bailing on you, but I didn't know. This was all so sudden…" He paused.

"Yeah," was all Blaine could say.

"But… I'll be back. Sometime. Maybe spring."

"Spring?" Blaine asked, that ever-present frown quickly finding its place on his face again. It had been gone for so short a time.

"Well I'll have to go to classes for a few months, I won't be able to come back… but I'm sure I'll get a spring break. I mean, that's what all college students are entitled to, right? And by then my dad will be murderous if I'm not back so… I'll have to."

Blaine didn't say anything.

"Come back. Then." Kurt awkwardly finished the sentence. He was obviously pained to have the entire conversation, and Blaine wasn't deluded enough to think it was because Kurt had actually wanted to spend time with him.

Blaine cleared his throat. "Well… okay. Thanks for letting me know. And congratulations."

"Thank you. Have a good holiday, Blaine."

"You too," he said, and switched quickly back to his brother's line before he said anything he shouldn't.

"Hello?" Cooper asked.

Blaine rubbed his eyes. "Hey."

"You were saying?"

"Um. Uh… thank you for being a good brother. That's what I wanted to say."

"You okay?"

"Yeah," Blaine said, unconvincingly. "Um, that was Kurt. He got into NYADA."

"Did you tell him you applied?"

He shook his head. "Nope."

—

On the last day before winter break, Blaine was staring into his locker pointlessly, except to waste a little time before he went home. He was sad every time he thought about Christmas, and Christmas was impossible to avoid. He would have preferred to keep going to school and not have a break at all. A break would only remind him that Kurt was supposed to be there, but wasn't going to be, anymore.

When he finally got around to closing his locker door, he was startled to find Burt Hummel standing on the other side, looking right at him, waiting for Blaine to eventually notice him.

"Hey, kid," Burt said while Blaine tried not to have a heart attack.

When he could speak again he said, "Are you here to kill me?"

Burt laughed. "No, I would've killed you months ago if I was going to."

Blaine didn't know what to say. "I'm sorry. For… everything."

Burt just rolled his eyes. "Come on, we're going to have a little talk." He began to walk down the hall, toward the front doors and the parking lot.

Blaine shouldered his bag and followed him hesitantly. "Is that a euphemism for killing me?"

Burt turned to give him a look. "I'm glad I'm still intimidating."

They ended up at the Lima Bean which, according to Burt, was apparently Blaine's "favorite place." Blaine didn't contradict the assumption.

Burt stared into his black coffee for a while, thinking, before he spoke. Blaine just shifted around nervously in his seat.

"First of all," Burt finally began, "I don't hate you for what you did. I was mad as hell about it for a while, mostly because I just didn't get it. I felt almost as betrayed as Kurt, just because I thought I knew you. I thought you were a good kid, that's why I trusted you with Kurt. But after a while I realized that all good kids make dumb mistakes. And it doesn't mean you aren't a good kid just because you messed up once."

Blaine felt a pressure in his heart and his head. He didn't know if he should laugh or cry. He kind of just wanted to run away. Finally he said, "Thank you."

"And none of it lets me off the hook for… not paying attention to you."

Blaine raised his eyebrows. "Are you supposed to pay attention to me?"

Burt shrugged. "Kind of. You're connected to my kid. It's stupid to think that Kurt's done with you forever. He said at first that he never wanted to see you again, and for a while I thought, 'I guess that's the last we'll see of Blaine.' But the more time that passed, the more I realized it's impossible. And Kurt's already changed his mind. He said he'd like to talk to you again, he just says he doesn't know if he's ready to do it yet. Well, too bad for him."

Blaine tried to make sense of this, but before he could ask questions Burt continued.

"And I visited you in the hospital myself, once or twice. I can tell how your dad treats you. I think he loves you, otherwise he wouldn't've ever been in the hospital with you, but I know he's not really around for you any other time."

Blaine used that moment to take a big gulp of coffee then, to keep himself from saying anything and to swallow at the lump in his throat.

"Kurt told me you cheated on him because you felt alone, and Kurt said, 'How stupid is that?' And I thought, well, you probably _were_ alone. You probably felt… terrible. I get it. And if I have it in my power to be around for you, if you need an older guy to talk to, then I should be. At least until you graduate and run off to New York, too."

Blaine stared at him for a moment and didn't say, "Thank you," until he was sure he was in control of his voice.

Burt nodded and waved it off. "You are planning on going to New York, aren't you?"

"I wasn't really on speaking terms with Kurt when the NYADA applications were due, and I didn't know what to do. I applied, but I still don't know if I'm going to…"

"Did you tell Kurt?"

"No… I've barely talked to him—"

"But he told you he got in?"

"Yeah, but—"

"You didn't tell him then?"

"No, because…" Blaine paused, thinking Burt would interrupt him again, but Burt just waited for an excuse. "Because it's going to be weird. I don't know if he still wants me to be there or not. And I didn't want to ruin the happy news with… weirdness."

Burt frowned and rubbed his forehead, like Blaine was giving him a headache. "Blaine," he sighed. "Do you see the pattern here?"

Blaine thought about it. "No?"

Burt dropped his hand and tried a different approach. "Just so we're clear, what exactly are your intentions with Kurt, at this point?"

Blaine shook his head and shrugged. "I love him."

"And you want to get back together?"

"Yes."

"But more important than that is that he forgives you. And it's even more important than _that_ that you forgive yourself."

Blaine nodded, but he didn't think that was ever going to happen. He'd already decided to dedicate his life to making it up to Kurt and apologizing for as long as he lived. But Sam had told him to try to be happy again, to try to let it go. Maybe forgiving himself and moving on were all part of the same thing.

"I don't mean congratulating yourself that you got away with it, if Kurt forgives you. I mean you have to accept that you're young, you were depressed, and you acted out in a negative way. There isn't anyone in the world who hasn't done that, in some way. You just need to realize that you were wrong and learn from it, and grow from it. That's it."

Blaine nodded. "Okay. I'll try."

"That brings us back to what I'm trying to tell you. Well, the first of two things. Imagine you and Kurt get back together, you go to college together in New York. What's going to stop you from cheating on him again?"

"Being so near to him," Blaine answered immediately, still sure that it never would have happened if Kurt had stayed or Blaine had gone with him. "Being able to see him every day and know I'm not losing him. And my whole life."

"No," Burt told him.

Blaine blinked. "No?"

"You're going to be a year behind Kurt at college too. Imagine as soon as he graduates he's hired onto a traveling Broadway show. He goes all over the country, or all over the world, for weeks or months or a year. And you can't go with him. What then?"

Blaine didn't know what to say.

"There're always going to be times in both of your lives that you'll be too busy to see each other all the time. And times when you'll be separated. Maybe for longer than you think you can handle. You can't be attached at the hip forever."

"But… maybe, if we're… I don't know, married…" Blaine babbled.

"No," Burt said again. "Why would a material object like a ring make you feel any less alone if he's gone for a year? Does that mean no one who's married has ever cheated on their spouse? Think again."

Blaine put his head in his hands. "I don't know," he said finally. "Maybe there's not an answer to your question. All I can say is that I know how I feel, and I know I'll never do it again…" he stopped when he looked up and saw Burt shaking his head.

"There is an answer," Burt said. "You have to think of it."

Blaine thought again. "I'll just… I'll…" He tried to think of all the advice people had given him since it happened. Sam. Cooper. Burt. He tried to think of what Kurt would tell him to do. And all at once it hit him. All of them in memories, asking, 'Why didn't you tell him?' and Kurt screaming, 'Why didn't you tell me?' And he himself, telling Kurt when he was jealous of Chandler, 'If you're unhappy, then tell me, but don't cheat one me.' "I'll tell him everything. I'll tell him if I'm unhappy, or even if I am. I'll tell him what's going on, and not hide it from him because I think I'm doing him a favor."

"Because if you hide it, then what happens?"

"It builds up into an impossible problem until it explodes and ruins everything."

"Exactly," Burt smiled. "You got the first part. But what if, while he's on this imaginary tour of the world, he's working so hard that he just comes home and falls asleep and doesn't have the time or energy to talk to you for days on end?"

Blaine only had to think about this question for a moment. "Then I'll just have to trust him. And he has to trust me."

"Very good," Burt nodded. "In conclusion?"

"Communication and trust," Blaine said.

"You got it."

"But I don't think he trusts me anymore."

"If you want him to forgive you, you need to start communicating now. You have to tell him everything. And in the meantime, work on getting him to trust you again. His trust in you isn't broken forever. You can fix it, you just have to earn it all over again. It's not impossible."

For the first time in a very long time, Blaine felt a glimmer of optimism. He almost felt happy, for a second. "Okay," he said. "Thank you."

"That was just the first part of why I brought you here," Burt said, draining his coffee. "But the second part is much simpler. It won't take much time. I just found out I have cancer."

Blaine stared at him, feeling like he just got punched. "I… I'm sorry."

"I haven't told Kurt, yet. I have to tell him in person. I'm going to visit him over Christmas, and I thought if you did a good job at this test today, which you did. You passed. Then you should come with me."

"To New York? To see Kurt?" Blaine repeated dumbly.

"I think he's going to need you when he hears about me. He has a million friends, but there aren't many people he cares about as much as I know he does you and me. He needs to know you're trying and you're going to be in his life again, even if I might, someday, have to bow out."

Blaine was speechless.

"I'm not dying," Burt said. "We caught it early, the doctors aren't too worried. But it's going to shake him up. It'll remind him that I do have to die, someday." He shrugged. "So will you be there for him, for me?"

Blaine tried to find his voice again. "Of course I will."

—

"Package for Kurt Hummel," Blaine said, skating up behind him. Stupid, but cheerful. He tried to play all the advice through his head like a mantra. Be happy. Be the person Kurt wants to be with. And he knew Kurt had just heard from Burt about his cancer. He needed someone to keep him from spiraling into a pit of hopelessness. He needed Blaine to be happy.

Kurt turned around and smiled when he saw him. Blaine could tell he was surprised, and not really in the mood to be surprised, but he was still happy to see him, in some way, and that was all that mattered to him. When they hugged Blaine never wanted to let him go.

While they skated Blaine hoped that Kurt would tell him how he was feeling, and his thoughts about his father. But he was quiet. He just smiled a lot, and was unusually quiet. It wasn't the perfect communication that Blaine was trying to initiate, but it wasn't really up to Kurt to be communicative. It was Blaine's job, at first. He would lead by example. He would get Kurt to talk to him candidly again, some day. And meanwhile he kept hoping Kurt would start to fall on the ice so he could very gallantly catch him, but Kurt managed to stay on his feet the whole time.

Afterward they met with Burt again at Kurt and Rachel's adorably decorated apartment and had Christmas dinner. Blaine tried to ignore the little feeling in the back of his heart that he was intruding and didn't belong there, that he wasn't almost a part of the Hummel family, anymore. Instead he focused on staying calm and happy, on being supportive and hopefully showing Kurt that he could lean on him, if he needed to. It just didn't seem like Kurt was noticing. He was just sad and trying not to show it, which was even sadder for Blaine to watch.

At some point that night Kurt said quietly, "I can't believe you brought me Blaine for Christmas," and he smiled and faintly blushed, his eyes down and locked on his plate. He almost seemed to say it to himself.

Burt helped introduce a good time for Blaine to tell Kurt he'd applied to NYADA. As he'd been all night, Kurt reacted in the same near-happy, strained, nervous, embarrassed way. It wasn't perfect, but at least he knew. That was the most important thing, Blaine told himself. And sometime soon, after the shock of Burt's health and his arrival in New York, they could talk about it more.

That night Kurt slept in Rachel's bed, Burt slept in Kurt's bed, and Blaine slept on the sofa in the living room. Blaine dreamt that Kurt came out and talked to him, or climbed on top of him and held him, but it never really happened. He woke up alone on the sofa in the morning, to the smell of Kurt making eggs.

After breakfast Kurt gave them a tour of the NYADA campus and they had lunch at a little deli. Kurt wouldn't really speak to either of them directly, just generally, and it was obvious he was still shaken.

And that evening, Blaine had to leave. Burt was going to stay longer, which Blaine was glad for. But he had to get back after just a day. His parents were already massively confused as to why Burt pleaded on Blaine's behalf to let him spend 24 hours in New York. They never would have allowed more than a day.

Blaine was packing his mini shampoo bottle and razor and toothbrush in the bathroom when he felt someone watching him. He turned his head and caught Kurt in the hallway, watching him from a safe distance. But when he was noticed, Kurt turned and walked away. Blaine followed him, took his arm gently, and said, "Hey. Talk to me."

Kurt just shrugged. "I was just looking at you. I don't get to see you much anymore."

"I know. You look so different now than you do in the pictures in my locker. And I was thinking about what you looked like when we met…"

"I finally went through puberty," Kurt smiled.

"No, I think it was New York. It's changed you."

"Are you saying I look like a homeless heroin addict?" He couldn't stop trying to joke his way out of the conversation. He was subconsciously pulling away from Blaine's grasp on his arm, trying to move out into the living room, to the safety of his father and the television, where he wouldn't have to be alone with Blaine.

"No, you're tall, and thin, and muscular, and beautiful now. I wish I could look at you all the time."

Kurt sighed sadly and went still. Then he put his arms around Blaine's waist, pulled him close and rested his chin on Blaine's shoulder. But he didn't say anything.

Blaine held him tight. "Talk to me," he pleaded.

Kurt shrugged. "There isn't anything to say," he whispered.

Blaine pulled back a little, just enough to look into his eyes and put his hands gently on his cheeks. "When does Rachel get back? I don't want you to be alone after Burt leaves."

"Why not?" Kurt asked, not looking Blaine in the eyes, unsuccessfully trying to hide the tears in his own.

"Because I know how sad you are."

Kurt pressed the back of his hand to his eyes. When he took it away, the tears were gone, but his eyes were still red. "I'm fine. I'll be fine. You have to go. You're going to be late." He let go of Blaine and reached around him to take his bag, carrying it for him to the front door.

Blaine took a deep breath and looked around, checking to see if he'd forgotten anything besides the love of his life. Kurt opened the door for him and they stood on opposite sides of the threshold.

"Call me if you need to talk to someone," Blaine made him promise. "I'll always listen."

Kurt nodded. "Okay."

"I…" Blaine began, but was too nervous to tell Kurt he loved him and then wait there awkwardly, hoping that Kurt would say it back. Maybe his feelings had changed since Thanksgiving. Maybe Kurt would only say it on the phone, and not in real life. So he reached up to kiss him on the cheek and changed his wording. "Please remember that I love you," he said, and walked away without giving Kurt the chance to say anything back at all.


	10. Chapter 10

"Happy belated New Year," Kurt said a month after Christmas to Blaine on the phone.

"Thanks," Blaine said. "You too."

"We haven't talked in… a long time."

"I know. I've kind of been waiting for you to call me. Maybe I shouldn't do that…"

"No, it's fine. I'm sorry I didn't call sooner." Kurt paused. "It was nice seeing you over Christmas."

"How's school?"

Kurt sighed. "It's a lot like high school. I don't know why I thought I'd actually enjoy being in a giant school full of Rachels. Actually, that's what I wanted to talk to you about."

Blaine sat cross legged on his bed and prepared to talk Kurt out of dropping out of school. "Okay."

Kurt took a deep breath. "Okay. So, I kept meeting all these improbably talented but obnoxious jerks and idiots in my classes. And I feel… _felt_ so out of place. I tried to hang out with Rachel but I can't even get to her because she's constantly surrounded by a gaggle of the absolute worst of the worst. And I think she's turning into one, but that's not the point right now."

"What's the point?" Blaine asked.

"The point is, I realized I needed my own friends or I might never survive. So I decided to join the show choir here."

"That's… awesome. Are they a million times better than the New Directions?"

"They're…" Kurt said, and laughed. "I don't know."

Blaine waited for him to explain, but he didn't. "… Okay?"

"Anyway, that's not the point either, really. I mean, it is, but…"

"You sound really nervous," Blaine pointed out.

"I am. Okay. I'm just going to say it. Somehow, partially due to Rachel's peer pressure, I ended up, not 48 hours after joining the show choir, asking out their lead singer. Like, on a date. And, before you say anything—"

Blaine shook his head even though Kurt couldn't see him. He wasn't going to say anything.

"There are a lot of points you need to hear. Point one, it's not even worth mentioning except I think Rachel told half of the world and the news might spread back to McKinley. Not that I think I'm actually that important, but just in case, I wouldn't want you to hear it through someone else that I, like, have a boyfriend."

Blaine held his breath. Maybe that would stop him from screaming.

"Which I _don't_," Kurt said quickly. "But that's what Rachel's telling everyone because she exaggerates everything, as you know. Point two, please know that I'm not in love with him, or in a committed relationship with him, or anything. It's really the smallest, most insignificant thing. We're really just friends. Nothing's happening with it. And point three, I know that you're probably upset to hear this. I would be upset if you told me the same thing. But… if there's anything certain about you and I right now, it's that we're not together, right? I know we don't know what's happening in the future, and I know we haven't talked about it enough to really figure it out. I know we need to. But I'm not ready to. I just can't. I'm so stressed out right now, and I need to be around really nice, normal people who support me so that I can at least try to feel normal sometimes. I need to make my own life here, you know. That was always the plan."

Kurt waited until Blaine said something. Finally Blaine said all that he could. "Thank you for telling me."

"Don't be mad, or insecure about it, or anything. I reiterate, this guy and I are not in a relationship. We haven't even really kissed, except he kisses me on the cheek sometimes when he leaves, but I think that's just because he's, like, European. Or not _European_ European, but, like, British. Maybe you have to be from the continent to do the male-kissing-your-friends-thing. I don't know, I haven't figured it out yet."

—

"_European_?" Sam, Finn, and Tina repeated in unison, the same look of confusion, shock, and disgust on their faces that Blaine must have had when he first heard it.

Blaine nodded. "But not '_European_ European,'" he added, sort of mocking Kurt's tone to benefit only his own unhappiness. "But, like, British."

"But you're from _Lima, Ohio_," Finn said.

"How are you supposed to compete with that?" Sam asked.

"It's like he bypassed the cool New Yorkers and went straight for the most awesome kind of person that can be found," Tina mused.

"I can't believe Kurt asked someone out first," Finn said. "You had to wake up out of a coma to ask him to Breadstix the first time."

"Thank you for recognizing that, Finn," Blaine said. "But why did he tell me like a hundred times not to worry, because they're just friends? If they were just friends he wouldn't have asked him on a _date_. So whatever the circumstances are, friends or not, Kurt's probably in love with him." He paused. "I think I'm going to have an aneurysm."

"European," Sam said again, mostly in wonder.

Brittany entered the classroom then and plopped down next to Sam. "Who's European?"

"No one," Blaine said miserably.

"Kurt's new boyfriend is European," Brittany said. "Or, like, British."

They all turned to stare at her.

"He's cute, too," she said.

"How do you know?" Tina asked.

"Because Rachel told me about him, and then I added him on Facebook."

"You _added him on Facebook_?" Blaine asked, not entirely unhysterical. "Why?"

"Because he's Kurt's new boyfriend," she shrugged. "You can tell Kurt has a type, though. The glee club he's in is exactly like the Warblers, if the Warblers were full of art college stereotypes and really aggressive lesbians. Plus, Kurt used to call the Warblers 'Blaine and the Pips,' right?"

"Once, to me, but…" he trailed off when he realized everyone else was nodding.

"He said it behind your back, too," Tina informed him.

"Blaine and the Pips, Adam and the Apples. And he's dating Adam," Brittany said. "Hello?"

"_Adam _and the_ Apples_?" Tina asked, more disgusted than she was before. "_Rachel_ didn't even try naming the New Directions after herself."

"That's actually the stupidest thing I've ever heard," Sam said and clapped Blaine sympathetically on the back. "No way it'll last."

"He's like your glee club twin," Brittany said.

"Your _European_ glee club twin," Finn remarked, and everyone laughed except Blaine.

—

Tina was sprawled across his bed and looking at the pictures of Kurt he kept on the bedside table when he came in with his tray. She asked him if he'd ever been with a girl and he said no out loud. To himself he added, and I'm not going to start now. He wondered if Tina was becoming Eli in girl form. But he didn't want to lose her in the same awful way, and he certainly wasn't going to make the same mistake twice. He'd have to confront her some day, soon. But not that particular day. He was too sick and too tired.

"Did you take your Nyquil yet?" she asked for the millionth time.

"No, and I don't think I should. I'll probably end up in the hospital."

"It just helps you sleep, it's not going to make you never wake up again," she said, like she was a registered nurse or something. "Besides, it's night time. You're supposed to sleep. Your body needs it."

"If I take half a dose, will you be satisfied?" he asked. She nodded and smiled. He did it. And after he swallowed it he wondered why.

"You should get rid of these pictures," she said, looking at them again. "I'll even get rid of them for you. Do you think Kurt has pictures of you all over the place, now that he has a new boyfriend?"

Blaine sighed and flopped onto his back on the bed beside her. "I don't know. Don't touch them."

"I mean, I'm not trying to be mean. You need to find someone new. You can't be single forever."

"Of course I can," he mumbled. He was tired already.

"But it's almost Valentine's day," she said. "You need a date to Mr. Schue's wedding."

He didn't reply. He was trying to think of a polite response, but instead he just fell asleep.

The next day at school he felt much better, and went to Tina to tell her so. It came to him in a dream that he should ask her to be his date to the wedding, and when he did it in real life she looked even happier than she had in the dream, if that were possible. He was about to stipulate that it was a friends-only kind of date, but she grabbed the red and white card he held in his hand and changed the subject before he could say it.

"What's this?" she asked, reading it without waiting for him to explain.

But he couldn't explain, even if he tried. "I don't know. A valentine? It came in the mail for me. There's no name on it. I guess it's not from you."

"No," she said and scrunched up her nose. "It says 'I'm sorry,' on it. With hearts. Who screwed you over? It must be from them."

"Yeah, literally no one that I can think of. Everyone's generally too nice to me, actually. For as bad as I treat some of them."

"Oh my God," she grinned at him. "It's a Valentine mystery."

He hesitated before asking his next question, knowing she couldn't possibly know the answer, but unable to resist. "Do you think it's from Kurt? It wouldn't be from Kurt, right?"

She looked up from the card. "What did he do to be sorry about?"

Blaine shrugged. "I don't know. He hasn't called for a while."

"It has to be more exciting than that," she said, rolling her eyes. She handed him the card back.

He couldn't do much to solve the mystery during the day, but he used study hall to stealthily send a Facebook message to Eli. For some reason it only made sense to him that the card was from Eli, in some stupid attempt to get Blaine to start talking to him again. "_You didn't send me any mail, did you?_"

Eli responded right away. Blaine had defriended him months ago, but it still seemed like he'd been waiting the whole time for Blaine to talk to him. "_Mail? Like, through the United States Postal Service, mail?_"

Blaine simply said yes, and waited.

Eli said, "_What is this, the 1800's? No, I didn't send you mail of any kind because I thought I'm not allowed to contact you ever again._"

"_You're right, you're not_," Blaine replied, and blocked him.

—

"Mail?" Kurt asked on the phone that night. "Like an email?"

"No, like mail in my mailbox. 'To Mr. Blaine Devon Anderson in Lima, Ohio' kind of mail."

"Um, no?"

Blaine sighed.

"Is it a Valentine?" Kurt asked.

"Sort of. But it says 'I'm sorry' inside"

"Who would feel the need to apologize to you?" Kurt asked.

"I don't know."

"There's no one you can think of? No one who's hurt you? Even if it was a while ago?"

Blaine frowned. "A while ago? Like how long? What do you mean?"

"I don't know! I'm just trying to help."

They were both quiet for a moment. Kurt started to say something at the same time Blaine said, "Still want to sing with me at the wedding?"

Kurt only got a couple of syllables out before he let Blaine take over. "I… yes. Of course. It'll be fun. Mr. Schue will like it, I think. It'll be just like the good ol' days."

"I think I've learned all the words."

"Good. We'll have to rehearse sometime beforehand. I'm still not sure what time I'm flying in to Lima but… I think we can make time."

"I'll be there if you are," Blaine said, and knew that Kurt smiled.

They were about to say goodbye and goodnight when Kurt cut Blaine off, asking quickly, "Did you think to look at the postmark?"

"Did I…what?" Blaine asked, but Kurt didn't respond. There was only silence on the other end. He looked at the screen and saw the call had been disconnected.

Blaine realized what Kurt was asking a moment later, and scrambled to find the envelope the Valentine had arrived in, buried in the bin beneath his desk. He laughed when he saw it and called Kurt back.

Kurt didn't even say hello, he was just laughing.

"Brooklyn, New York," Blaine said, shaking his head. "How did I not notice?"

"Oh my God," Kurt said, faking seriousness. "Do you think it's from Rachel? What did _she_ do to you?"

Blaine rolled his eyes. "Why are you apologizing to me?"

"I have no idea what you're talking about," Kurt said. "Don't forget to check your mail tomorrow." He hung up again.

The next day another anonymous valentine was in the mail for Blaine. It said if he wanted to meet his secret friend-mirer he should be at Breadstix on February 13th at 8 PM. He called Kurt after opening it.

"Not that I'm not thrilled, but why are you doing this?" Blaine asked.

"Do you know that literally every song on the radio right now is about how the singer lost their true love because they didn't spend enough time with them?"

Blaine hesitated. He tried to tell himself that Kurt must be going somewhere else with the words, 'true love;' that he couldn't possibly be talking about him, even as he held the stupid valentine in his hands. He cleared his throat and tried to play it cool. "I can only think of one, but sure."

"It's like every time I hear a song it sounds like it's about you. And it's like they're all telling me I didn't… treat you right."

"I think you have it backwards," Blaine said, ignoring the physical onset of panic and euphoria that was spreading over him.

"I know I didn't spend enough time with you."

"You couldn't exactly spend any time with me from another state," he pointed out.

"I'm just saying that I realize I'm not blameless in the whole thing. I wasn't perfect, either. It doesn't mean I deserved to be cheated on, but, now that enough time has passed for me to stop sobbing on a daily basis, I can see we both contributed to the demise of the relationship. And if we want to be friends again, I have to apologize for my part. Among other things, I specifically apologize for leaving you behind in Lima. I know it hurt you, and I did it anyway, and I'm sorry."

Blaine didn't respond for a while. He just sat there, frozen, in shock, with a dumb smile on his face, for a significant period of time.

"Are you still there?" Kurt asked eventually.

"Yes."

"What are you thinking?"

"Um," Blaine said, rolled his shoulders, and looked at his watch. "I'm thinking that I'm almost 45 minutes late for homeroom."

Kurt laughed. "Sorry. So are you meeting me at Breadstix next week or not?"

"Of course I will. And it's not next week, it's in like three days."

"Right, right."

"Like, 72 hours," Blaine said.

"But, Blaine, it's not a date, or anything. We're not getting back together. We're just trying harder at being friends."

"I know, I know," Blaine nodded. "It's still in 72 hours."

"Just so you know," Kurt said. "That we're not."

"I know."

"Right."

As soon as he got to school he texted Sam. "_Guess what?"_

_"What?"_

_"I'm going on a date with Kurt."_

_"When? Tonight in your dreams?"_

_"No, in 72 hours. At Breadstix. In real life."_

_"I'm gonna need some more information."_

_"Okay, Kurt isn't exactly considering it a date. But it's at night, the night before Valentine's day, at the most romantic place Lima could possibly come up with. At the same place we had our first date. I mean… It doesn't even matter if Kurt doesn't think it's a date at this point, I'm going to make it one._"

Sam wished him good luck, which might or might not have been sarcastic or incredulous, which Blaine ignored.

For the next two days, Blaine's head was in the clouds. He heard and participated in almost nothing, too busy thinking about what was to come with Kurt. But by the morning of the 13th, he started to panic again. There was too much pressure to get everything right, to impress Kurt so much that he changed his mind, dumped his pseudo-boyfriend, and came running back to Blaine's arms. What could he do? How could he make it work?

Thinking about it all caused him to forget and disregard other, far less important things. He forgot to brush his teeth and wore mismatched socks to school. He almost ran into a wall at one point. Sam kept giving him weird looks. Tina just kept smiling at him.

When he got home from school he realized he only had 5 hours before Kurt would be sitting in a booth at Breadstix, waiting for him there. His heart started pounding. He ran into the bathroom and took another shower, made sure to brush his teeth and everything else he could think of, trying to make himself the cleanest and most desirable being on earth.

With only two hours left, he had every article of clothing he owned on the floor of his bedroom, in various possible outfit combinations. And he knew he'd never be able to pick one.

He called Sam. "I'm having a fashion emergency."

"And you called me?"

"I can't call Kurt if he's the one I'm trying to impress. What should I wear on a date-not-date?"

"Clothes," Sam said. "And cologne. You gotta smell really good. That's as far as my expertise goes."

Blaine went back to his bathroom and pulled bottles of cologne from a drawer. He squinted at the labels and read them aloud. "Should I go with an early morning walk around an ice covered lake in a forgotten wood, or a scent that elicits the adrenaline charged streets of Paris?"

As soon as the words were out of his mouth his vision went black for an instant, like the lights of the world were shut off and turned back on again. He didn't realize he'd almost fell until he caught his heel on the wall behind him and almost twisted his ankle. Somewhere very far away he could hear Sam laughing, but it didn't sound quite right. Blaine rubbed his eyes with his free hand. "What?"

"Uh, what?" Sam asked. "I said Paris. Well, I laughed at you, and then I said Paris."

"I didn't hear you…" Blaine mumbled, and the world seemed to shift from under him again. His hands and feet began to tingle and all the rest of him felt too light, like it was disconnected and might rise up into space and float away.

"Phone cut out?" Sam asked, but he sounded like he was under water on another planet.

"No, I feel weird. I'm just gonna—" Blaine said, and didn't finish his sentence. He sat on the bathroom floor and put his head against the base of the sink.

"Are you sick?" Sam asked, growing concerned. "Are you going into another coma thing? Should I call an ambulance? Should I call the cops? Did you take your medicine?"

Blaine thought about it, but it was hard to think. He always took it. He always took it right after he brushed his teeth. But he forgot to brush his teeth that morning. He tried to answer Sam, but he didn't know if he succeeded before everything went black again, and stayed that way, the second time.


	11. Chapter 11

"Dudes, you have to try this Jello."

"They actually serve Jello in hospital cafeterias? I thought that only happened in movies."

"It has whipped cream on top, it's amazing."

"Do you even know what they make Jello out of?"

"Shut up. Both of you just shut up. I'm enjoying this and you can't stop me."

Silence.

"The look on your face is making me want to go get some."

"Go. You have to. Don't be all depressed like Kurt. Blaine would want us to eat delicious Jello while he was passed out or whatever."

"I'm not depressed, and he's not passed out."

"I'm getting some Jello. Do they have blue?" Heels clicked out of the room.

"What? I mean, I'm _depressed_, but it's not like it was before. He'll be fine."

Silence.

"Quit looking at me like that. You have whipped cream on your chin."

"That can't be true, I don't even eat with my chin."

A sigh. Without previously realizing someone was holding his hand, Blaine felt them suddenly let go.

"I'm going to talk to the doctor again."

He wanted to tell Kurt to stop, to come back, but he couldn't. He couldn't even open his eyes. So he laid there, unmoving, and listened to the silence, to Sam quietly slurping at his Jello from the other side of the room.

The heels returned a while later. "They didn't have blue," Tina said. "So I got green. Did he do anything yet?"

"Like wake up?" Sam asked. "No."

"Did he even move?"

"No. I don't know."

"You have to stare at him for a while."

"Sounds like a good job for you."

"What if he's making like, really tiny, miniscule movements that can only be seen from up close?" As she said this, he felt her come closer. By the end of her sentence he felt her breath on his cheek.

The door reopened. "Tina, if you don't get away from— from Blaine," Kurt seemed to stumble over his words, "I swear to God."

"I was _trying_ to see if he might be waking up, which is more than _some_ of us are doing."

"I was _talking_ to the _doctor_," Kurt replied, imitating her snark. "I'd like to see you try to get information out of him. Go ahead. Go tell him you're a random, underaged classmate of Blaine's and you want all the classified personal information about him he can possibly offer."

"Just because you _lied_ to him—" Tina tried to say.

"I didn't lie! Exactly! And keep your voice down!"

Blaine stopped listening to them argue and tried to concentrate on moving an arm, or something. He tried to lift his hand first, to no avail. He knew trying to open his eyes was pointless. Aggravated, he tried to throw an inward fit, and in his mind he flailed around and rolled out of bed and ran out of the hospital like a marathon sprinter and maybe did rather skilled cartwheels all the way home. In reality, he managed to barely move his leg.

"Uh, guys," Sam said. "He totally just moved."

Tina and Kurt stopped mid-argument and fell silent.

"Go eat your Jello on that side of the room," Kurt shooed Tina, and returned to Blaine's side. He held his hand again.

Blaine struggled with himself until his eyes opened in slits. He spent more effort trying to grip Kurt's hand, to keep him from letting go again, than he did actually trying to wake up and open his eyes. But eventually it occurred to him that it might be equally as wonderful to look at Kurt, too.

Kurt gave him a sad smile when their gazes met. "How do you feel?" he asked Blaine.

"Happy, to see you," Blaine answered, but only a fraction of it actually came out of his dry throat. He cleared his throat and tried again. "I hope you weren't going to wear that Breadstix," he whispered, eyes sweeping over Kurt's tuxedo.

"No… that was last night. Today's the wedding." Kurt seemed a little embarrassed, like it was his fault that time had naturally passed since Blaine was last conscious. "We all got ready, in case you woke up in time…"

Blaine feebly lifted his head to see Sam and Tina in their formalwear. He waved at them and they waved back.

"I have to get dressed, too. What time is it? What time is the wedding?" He made a sad attempt at rolling out of bed but Kurt gently pushed him back.

"I don't know if you should go. You should probably rest. And you're attached to an IV anyway, so you can't go very far."

"No, I'm going. I missed our date last night, I'm not going to miss the wedding."

"You don't have to go for me," Kurt said.

"I'm not going to spend the entire time you're in Lima sleeping, I haven't seen you since Christmas and I want to spend time with you—"

"I'll stay an extra day, we'll hang out tomorrow."

"No," Blaine insisted, and pushed himself up to sitting. "I'm going to the wedding."

Kurt sighed. "Fine."

Blaine felt weird making a decision for himself, without asking anyone for permission first. Then he realized why. "Where are my parents?"

"They're here. They're sitting outside. They thought we were being teenage hooligans in here, or something."

"Which we are," Tina said with a mouthful of Jello.

"They just wanted some space. Sam called them after you stopped talking to him on the phone," Kurt smiled.

Sam gave a sheepish shrug. "I called Kurt first."

"Anyway, we took care of you, and Tina… was very supportive," Kurt said.

"He's my date to the wedding," she said, glaring at Kurt. "Obviously I'm gonna be here."

"Obviously," Kurt agreed under his breath, giving Blaine a fleeting look of genuine Tina-related concern before standing up. "I'll get the doctor and your parents."

Ten minutes later, when everyone was gathered in an awkward semi-circle around his hospital bed, Kurt bounced on his feet. "I was going to tell you earlier but I thought you wouldn't believe me."

"Tell me what?"

"The doctor has to tell you," Kurt said, sharing the same knowing smile that was also on his parents' faces.

The doctor opened his mouth but Kurt interrupted him. "You're cured!"

Blaine stared at him, and couldn't help but smile. "You're right, I don't believe you."

"Not cured, exactly," the doctor said with a laugh.

"Practically cured," Kurt whispered so everyone could hear him.

"What I told Kurt and your parents," the doctor said, "is that this episode only proves that the medication we put you on works exactly as we wanted and expected it to. As long as you're sure you didn't take it yesterday."

"I'm sure I didn't take it yesterday," Blaine said a little guiltily.

"So we gave you some intravenously to make up for it," he pointed to the IV machine. "And you're awake again. That's exactly what should happen."

"That's good, I guess," Blaine said. Kurt was still bouncing impatiently. "Is there something else?"

"Oh, right," the doctor said, looking up from his notes. "If you forget the medication again, and the same thing happens in the future, I don't see any reason why you'd have to come back to the hospital."

Kurt was grinning. Blaine was trying to process what he was saying. "Like, ever?"

"Not for any reason related to your loss of consciousness, as far as I can see. I'm convinced you have quite the support system," he motioned around the room, to his parents, to Kurt and Sam and Tina, "and as long as long as everyone here knows that you need two pills if you involuntarily fall asleep, you'll be fine. They can stick them under your tongue. It'll taste disgusting when you wake up, but that's what you get for forgetting, I guess. And I'm sure you'll be awake again in less than 24 hours. If it lasts for more than two days, then yes, I'd like for you to be admitted to the hospital. But I really doubt it will ever come to that. You respond perfectly to the medication."

Kurt applauded in joy, which Tina and Sam joined in on, adding their own "Yaaaaaay!"s. His father clapped him on the back and his mother gave him a sideways hug as he was still sitting up in the bed.

Blaine thanked the doctor and then everyone else in the room in succession, in a happy shock. And then everyone kind of stared at him, wondering what his next move might be. All he could do was look at Kurt in his tuxedo.

"Okay," Blaine said. "Unhook me. I'm going to the wedding."

His mother tried to talk him out of it, but not very convincingly. When his father mumbled to her to let him go if he wanted to go, she gave in. The doctor pulled the tubes from his arm and Kurt presented the shopping bag he had brought Blaine's suit in. "I thought if you absolutely insisted, we should at least have something for you to wear besides a hospital gown," he said.

Blaine wobbled to the bathroom and dressed himself. As he slipped on the second shoe and tied his tie, there was a quiet knock at the door. When he opened it Kurt was there, wordlessly handing him a little pot of hair gel and a comb.

"Is this a comment on my appearance?" Blaine joked, and when Kurt looked a little bit genuinely embarrassed, Blaine shook his head and didn't give him a chance to answer the question. "I'm sorry. Thank you. I would have had a nervous breakdown without it. I haven't even looked in the mirror yet."

Kurt took his time responding, like he was choosing his words carefully. Finally he said, "I just thought you'd appreciate it."

"We wouldn't want a prom part two," Blaine agreed. But he knew he would have gone to the wedding no matter what his hair looked like, or even if he had to wear a hospital gown to it. His insistence wasn't really based on his loyalty to Mr. Schuester. He just really, really, really, really wanted to spend time with Kurt. It felt very important. He felt that it had to be done, no matter what.

He tried to wash and style his hair in the little bathroom sink and mirror, and tried to take as little time as possible doing so. He opened the door fast and reentered the room. "Let's go."

His father told him to have fun, his mother told him to be careful. Kurt promised to keep an eye on him, and Tina quickly promised the same thing. Blaine lagged behind the group as they all tried to leave at once, all wrapped up in several separate conversations. His parents went first, and then the doctor who had been joined by a nurse, discussing what to order for dinner, completely unconcerned. Sam and Tina were laughing about something, and Kurt, reading his mind, waited for Blaine.

"Are you okay?" Kurt asked him. "Should we rent a wheelchair, at least? No one will laugh at you, I mean—"

"I'm fine," Blaine cut him off, trying to sound confident. He smiled at Kurt, and surreptitiously wrapped an arm around his waist.

Kurt assumed, or went along with the facade, that Blaine actually needed to lean on someone to walk. He smiled back at him and put his own arm around Blaine's waist in return. "You look rather handsome today. Especially for a recently released hospital patient."

"Thank you, as do you. I like your bowtie."

Kurt reflexively put his fingers to it, lifting his chin and exposing his throat. "Thanks."

They unnecessarily slowly brought up the rear of the group. Tina kept looking behind her and glaring at them. Blaine just smiled at her.

"Hurry up!" she called.

"We're not even late yet," Kurt said, checking his watch. "We have plenty of time."

They passed by the front desk on the way to the elevators, where the doctor and now three nurses were comparing delivery menus.

"Congratulations, by the way," the doctor told them as they passed, without even looking up.

Blaine paused. Two of the nurses grinned at him. "Yeah, congratulations," they said.

Before he could ask, Kurt was pulling him along, leading him determinedly to the elevator. Kurt had his hand to his mouth now, trying not to laugh. "Thank you," Kurt managed to call back to them, with a mostly even tone.

"Thanks…" Blaine added, going along with it.

Kurt pulled him into the elevator with Tina and Sam and burst into laughter when the doors slid closed. Tina was still glaring at him.

"If you think they were just congratulating you on your wedding, it's because they were," she said, obviously unamused.

"Well, the soulmate thing was getting me nowhere last night!" Kurt exclaimed. "The doctor didn't care, and now that you're 18 he said he needed your express written or verbal consent, or whatever, to tell me anything about your health. Which is ridiculous. It affects me, too, you know."

"I know," Blaine said, sympathetic and guilty. He'd fill out all the forms in the world that would give anything he had to Kurt, if he knew Kurt wanted them.

"And then this morning we all decided to dress for the wedding so we could stay with you longer, rather than leaving to go get ready early. Well, they were going to go. I was going to stay, if you didn't wake up yet," Kurt said. "And I was all upset, trying to think of what to do. And I was almost going to call Cooper, because he could always get me in to see you. But then the doctor saw us dressed up for the wedding and he was like, 'Whoa, who's getting married?'"

"And he said '_me, to Blaine,_'" Tina finished the story.

"And then he was like, '_Now_ will you tell me what's going on with him?'" Sam added, and laughed. "It was amazing. You're going to be a totally awesome actor, Kurt."

"I was pretty convincing," Kurt nodded. "I think Cooper would have been proud."

"But didn't my parents ruin it?" Blaine asked.

"They never heard anything about it," Kurt smirked. "It was perfect. And then he told me everything, and I didn't have to be the absolute last one to know that you don't have to go back to the hospital. Ever again. In fact, I was the first to find out." He looked quite pleased with himself.

Blaine just smiled at him.

Kurt blinked, and his smile faded a bit. "But it doesn't mean anything, that I said… that. I just wanted to con information out of him. We're still just… friends."

"Right," Blaine said.

"Right," Kurt agreed.

"Right," Tina chimed in.

"Okay…" Sam said, just to say something.

Kurt and Sam went toward Kurt's rental car in the parking ramp, and Blaine was ready to follow Kurt anywhere, but Tina grabbed his arm and pulled him away. "We're going in my car," she stated.

"Oh," Blaine said. "Okay."

He tuned out Tina's chatter while they followed Kurt and Sam to the church. He thought he saw Kurt's eyes sometimes in his rearview mirror, or maybe he imagined it. There were two thoughts he couldn't get out of his mind. The first was Kurt telling people they were getting married, even if it was a ruse, or a joke. There were three nurses and a doctor who were entirely convinced he and Kurt were getting married. It must seem plausible to to other people. They were old enough now. Blaine was only a few months away from graduating. They could do it. They could get it out of the way before he moved to a new apartment with Kurt in New York. It could be a small affair. No one would really have to know about it. And they weren't so young that it meant they were making a stupid mistake, because they were soulmates, too. If it made sense to other people, why shouldn't it make sense to them? Why shouldn't they actually go through with it?

Except that he would never get Kurt to agree to it. Not yet, anyway. He needed more time to convince Kurt to forgive him, and he meant to make the most of the time he had now. It wouldn't hurt that they were going to someone else's wedding. It might even put Kurt in a romantic mood.

As for the second thought, he had to ignore it as best as he could, especially while Tina was in the car, blabbing away next to him.

They parked in adjoining spots at the church and reconvened into a group of four. Blaine followed Kurt's gaze to the front doors, upon which Rachel leaned, arms folded, talking to Finn. Kurt held up the rental car keys and jangled them in her direction. She shook her head, so he pocketed them. "We're sharing the rental car," he explained. "It's really… fancy. I think we could successfully rob a bank with it."

They admired it for an awkwardly silent moment before Sam cleared his throat. "Oh! Tina, let's go inside. See if anyone needs help. Like Miss Pillsbury, or someone."

Tina sighed, exasperated, and stared at Blaine. "Are you even going to sit with me during this thing or should I try attaching myself to some other couple? I might as well just go home."

"No!" he said. "I'll sit with you, of course. I asked you to come with me, I'm not ditching you."

"I just want to talk to Blaine, alone, for like three minutes. Max." Kurt said.

She frowned and followed Sam inside.

"Like, really alone," Kurt said when they were gone. He opened the back door of the car. "Come on," he said, climbing in first and shifting to the other side so Blaine could get in next to him.

Blaine didn't know if he should shut the door or not, but he did. Suddenly he was very aware of how alone they were, how long it had been since they were last alone together. It was like he'd shut the whole world out.

"I'm so happy for you," Kurt began. "I know I can't shut up about it, but I've been constantly worried about you since I met you."

"Don't worry about me," Blaine pleaded.

"I will a little less, now. As long as you have the pills with you. Do you have some with you now?"

"Yes, I already had them in the bag you so thoughtfully brought for me."

Kurt smiled. "Good." They stared at each other for a moment, and Kurt began again. "The doctor said you shouldn't live alone. He said someone should keep an eye on you as often as possible. And I told him that I would."

Blaine pressed his lips together. "That's very kind of you, but we don't even live in the same state."

"Not now, but you're coming to New York, aren't you?"

"I don't know. I want to, but… I don't know if I should."

"Of course you should. I took responsibility for you and I intend to see it through. You'll come to New York this summer, and go to NYADA and live…" he paused. "… Nearby."

Blaine half rolled his eyes and turned to look out the window. He couldn't look at Kurt when he knew what Kurt was about to say.

"Well, I want you to live with me, but I don't know what that means, and I really don't know how Ad—" he stopped himself.

Blaine looked back at him and raised an eyebrow, expectantly.

"I don't know how Adam would take it," Kurt said, looking pained to say it. "I don't know what he would think, I don't even know what I would think. I don't know what would happen. I just know that I want you close so that I can take care of you. It's my responsibility."

"It's my responsibility to take care of myself," Blaine corrected him.

"Maybe we should try to take care of you together," Kurt said with the faintest of smiles.

Blaine returned it. "Maybe. I can't give you a definitive answer right now. I don't know if I could handle seeing you with someone else all the time. I don't want to move there just to move away after a month because I'm miserable."

"Just think about it. Coming to New York, I mean," Kurt said, and put his hand on top of Blaine's.

Blaine squeezed his fingers and nodded. They looked at each other again.

"Sometimes I wonder if we're thinking the same thing," Kurt said quietly. "Like right now."

Blaine couldn't help but smile. "What are you thinking right now?" he asked, before Kurt could ask him first.

Kurt averted his eyes and smiled at the back of the headrest in front of him. "I'm… I don't know. What are you thinking about?"

Unfair. "Back seats," Blaine said.

Kurt looked at him again.

"The meaning of back seats," he continued, watching a little blush rise to Kurt's cheeks. "And how we even ended up here."

Kurt cleared his throat. "We can't get back together," he said quickly. "Not right now. Not at all, while I'm here this weekend. You have to give me more time."

"Okay."

"A lot more time."

"Okay."

"I… have to figure out what I'm doing with Adam. Anyway at this point I'm pretty sure he would be upset if I came back or called him up and dumped him for no reason."

Blaine made a face to himself and tried to ignore that comment. "Okay."

"And that means there are feelings involved, so that means it's something more than nothing. And I can't _cheat_ on him. Even if he's convoluted whatever it is that's going on between us, I can't… cheat on him."

Blaine bit his tongue. "Okay." He was going to open the car door and get out, maybe try to avoid Kurt for the rest of the weekend or at least for an hour or so until he got his emotions under control, and only then if they were in a group of people and he wouldn't be required to actually speak to him. But Kurt's hand was still on his, and before he could pull away Kurt flipped it over and traced the lines of his palm with his fingers. Kurt was deep in thought, frowning and furrowing his eyebrows and everything.

Blaine felt his heart or lungs or something important in his chest tighten up. He tried to take a deep breath. "Kurt," he breathed out. "I don't think—"

Kurt's fingers stopped tracing, but he didn't lift his eyes. "You don't think what?"

That I can do this, Blaine wanted to say. That I can just be your friend. That I can handle listening to you talk about being in a relationship with someone else, talk about how loyal you are to him that you would never want to hurt him, even if it meant hurting either of us. Especially if you're going to pull me into back seats of cars and touch my hand, when I know you're remembering when we used to be lovers, when you know I can't touch you back.

But he couldn't say it. He had to try. He had to smile and grind his teeth and chew up his tongue and let Kurt date other people, and still try to be his friend. If he asked Kurt for all or nothing, he might actually end up with nothing. And that wasn't a viable option.

He shook his head. "Never mind."

"Don't be sad," Kurt smiled at him, apparently done thinking. "What can I do to cheer you up?"

Stop being suggestive? Blaine thought. "Um," he said out loud.

But before he could think of an answer, Kurt leaned into him and kissed him.

Blaine's heart melted and broke and repaired and melted again, and he pulled Kurt closer. "You don't have to kiss me to cheer me up," he tried to say against Kurt's lips.

"It's not entirely for your benefit," Kurt said, raising an eyebrow. "I'm the one who pulled you into the back seat."

"Mmm?" Blaine asked.

"It was planned all along," Kurt said. "I sort of, barely tried to talk myself out of it, but screw that."

And with that, the kiss turned from sweet and a little apprehensive to needy and passionate. Kurt parted Blaine's lips with his own and slid his tongue over Blaine's teeth and tongue. Blaine tried to think of the last time he'd kissed Kurt like that, but realized it was probably right before he told him about Eli, so he pushed it out of his mind. He wrapped his arms around Kurt's waist and had no intention of letting him go any time soon. The wedding completely left his thoughts.

Kurt wiggled backwards toward his side of the car, pulling Blaine along with him, without ever breaking the kiss. Blaine sort of wondered to himself where they were going, but had an answer when he realized Kurt was guiding him onto his back and climbing on top of him.

Blaine would have told him this was a pleasant and unexpected turn of events, but he couldn't really talk.

Kurt pulled away from him, only a few inches, to give him a look. "We're not getting back together."

Blaine nodded. "That's why you told that doctor you're marrying me and promised him you would take care of me the rest of my life, and why you're on top of me right now."

"We're _not_," Kurt said, and kissed him again. "We're not doing anything."

"Oh," Blaine said.

Kurt pulled up again. "We're just… having a wedding inspired make out hookup. So is everyone else out there, I guarantee you."

"Probably not at this point in the day," Blaine had to disagree. "I think the wedding is supposed to happen first, to, you know, romantically inspire everyone. And then the reception. With alcohol. I think after all of that is when the hookups are supposed to happen."

Kurt frowned. "None of that is true at all." They kissed again.

Blaine leaned up and into him as much as he could with all of Kurt's weight pressing him down. Into the kiss, into his body, into anything he could get at. He wanted to promise Kurt somehow that he wanted it as much as Kurt did, probably more. He just wanted Kurt to admit it meant something.

There was a knock at the window. Blaine didn't care who it was or what they were knocking for. There could have been an apocalypse and he would have stayed put. When Kurt lifted his head, Blaine tried to peer up and out of the window, but he couldn't see anything.

"That's my date!" Tina's muffled voice yelled.

"Your date's kind of busy right now!" Kurt yelled back.

Blaine heard her stomp away. Kurt looked for a second like he was going to ask Blaine what in the hell that was all about, but just as quickly changed his mind and they kissed again.

This time Kurt's hands were quick to wander. Now that Tina had come after them, any number more might be on her heels. It was like Kurt was determined to accomplish something in particular before they ran out of time, before someone surely forced them to get out of the car and get into the church.

Despite how much Blaine's body, mind, and soul wanted Kurt to accomplish that particular thing, he still had lingering hesitations. They were in a church parking lot, for one thing, the windows surrounding them was another. The dozen people who knew where they were and would at any second realize what they were doing. Blaine needed privacy and time with Kurt, and he was going to get neither in that rental car.

Still, Kurt's hands had loosened his shirt from the sides where it had at one time been tucked into his trousers, and was running his soft palms up his bare torso, from waist to nipple, and back down again. But as much as everything in Blaine screamed at him to let it keep happening, to always have as much of Kurt's skin touching his own, at all times, he knew they couldn't.

"Maybe… this isn't… like… the best time…" he managed to whisper in the breaks of kisses. "But maybe… later…"

But Kurt ignored him. And Blaine was afraid later, no matter how soon later might be, Kurt wouldn't feel the same or want him anymore. Maybe the stars had aligned for him, just for five minutes, and it wasn't going to happen ever again.

So he changed his mind. He wiggled under Kurt even further, rolled up into him harder, and with nervous fingers pulled open his belt. Before the second knock on the window he had just enough time to brush his fingertips over Kurt's erection, to feel how hard he was through the cotton of his boxer briefs. It was a little surprising. After everything that had happened, Blaine still had a difficult time believing Kurt was capable of finding him attractive or worthwhile at all. The knowledge, and the little noise Kurt made when he touched him, went directly to his own, already well established, erection.

But the knock came anyway. And Mercedes even had the nerve to open the door. He and Kurt stared up at her, frozen. Partly because they couldn't move much at all without seriously embarrassing themselves, and partly because they were both in shock.

Blah blah blah, she said. Something about the wedding. You both have to go, so get out of the car.

Kurt sat up on his knees and Blaine sat up to face him, to talk to him for ten more seconds before the world separated them again. He said what he thought he should say. "I'm sorry."

Kurt frowned at him, smoothing his shirttail. "Why?"

"Because I'm not exactly sure what's happening right now… I think I'm still kind of waking up… but I know somehow this is probably my fault."

"Maybe it's not a bad thing, Blaine," Kurt said, and rolled down the window. He stuck his head out and sucked in some fresh air, trying to cool off. "Not everything has to have a meaning. Maybe we're just having a little fun for once in our lives."

Blaine knew he was either lying or had deluded himself somehow. Maybe his pseudo new boyfriend had brainwashed him. Sex and kissing didn't have to mean something to everyone, but it by necessity had to mean something to them. "Well, if you're sure I didn't guilt you into making out with me at some earlier point that I can't remember…"

Kurt just gave him a look and started awkwardly crawling over him, toward the open car door, to join Mercedes and the wedding.

Blaine decided to beg for one last thing. "Don't avoid me later."

"I never avoid you," Kurt said, not looking back.

"We have to talk, Kurt. We have to."

But Kurt was already outside, taking Mercedes' arm, leaving him behind to go find Tina.


	12. Chapter 12

"Stop thinking about marrying me," Kurt teased.

Blaine smiled into Kurt's neck and pulled him a little closer. They were dancing at the party that was supposed to be the reception, but had turned into a weird post-non-wedding get together. "You can't make me."

"There wasn't even a wedding, you can't pretend it inspired you."

"I'll think whatever I want to think. You can't tell me what to think."

Kurt sighed, and smiled, and changed the subject. "Thanks for singing with me. Before I graduated I didn't ever think about how it meant our world renowned duets would be coming to an end. Except for special events."

"Maybe more people will get married and they'll ask us to sing. We could start a company. We could be professional wedding singers. We'd have a duet every weekend."

"That sounds horrendous," Kurt said.

Blaine pretended to be hurt.

Kurt laughed. "Not because I don't want to sing duets with you every weekend…"

"Of course not."

"I just can't imagine…" he laughed again and rubbed his forehead at the thought. "Being a wedding singer. We'd probably have to wear powder blue tuxes and grow mustaches or something."

"Your Broadway dreams are too grandiose," Blaine said. "I'll just stay here and be a solo wedding singer. I could make it a regional midwest thing. I'll Skype you sometimes from glamorous Indiana and show you the progress I've made on my mustache."

"No, I won't accept that either. I also happen to have grandiose dreams for you, too."

Blaine raised an eyebrow at him. "We're both going to be Tony winning Broadway stars?"

"Maybe," Kurt said.

"Both of us will stay grounded, neither of us will have an ego, we'll never compete for roles or step on each other's toes or hate each other…"

"I wouldn't go _that_ far," Kurt said. "I'll definitely have an ego. But no, you don't have to be a Broadway star. I mean, you very well could be. But maybe you'll do other things."

"Like what?"

"Like record an album, or be in movies, or something."

"I mean besides the glaringly obvious."

Kurt laughed again. "I'm serious. You're not going to get Finn Hudson Syndrome and stay here while you figure out what to do with your life. You have to get out and throw yourself into everything you think you might want to do, and figure it out as you go. I won't let you settle on being a wedding singer in Indiana in thirty years."

"What if that's my dream?"

"Shut up." He was quiet for a moment. They listened to the music. "I mean, no offense to Finn. I feel bad for him. Life is giving him a hard time."

"Yeah," Blaine said.

"He said you kind of helped him, though. I also think he's mad at you, but he's grateful, too. And he's actually speaking to Rachel again." Kurt turned and looked behind him, somewhere by the elevator bank in the hallway. He turned back. "And that could be a euphemism for sleeping with her, because I think they went up to her hotel room like ten minutes ago."

"Ew," Blaine joked.

"Tell me about it," Kurt groaned.

"Maybe you were right, maybe everyone is going to hook up at this wedding. And there wasn't even a wedding."

"I'm always right about everything."

"Maybe, in a dramatic turn of events, Mr. Schue will re-hook up with Miss Pillsbury?"

Kurt sighed. "You're making me ill."

Blaine tried to think of an extremely vague and gentlemanly way to mention something about Kurt's hotel room, but Kurt changed the subject again before he could say anything.

"Do you know what Tina's been doing to you?"

"Doing to me?"

"Sexually assaulting you in your sleep. She admitted it to me at the baby cupcake stand."

Blaine stopped dancing. He took a step back to look at Kurt, trying to gauge how serious he was.

"Okay, once. That's why she gave you that NyQuil. She _drugged_ you."

"What did she do to me?" Blaine asked, getting nervous.

"She _put Vick's Vaporub on you_."

"_Where_ on me?"

"On_ your chest_."

"You mean _where it belongs_?"

"Okay, you have to ask a person first! Obviously if she had to wait for you to pass out before she did it, she knew she was wrong."

Blaine smiled at him and pulled him close again, resuming their dance. "She's harmless. I think she has a crush on me."

"You think?!"

"I think it's a little intense… but she knows I'm in love with you."

He was close enough to see the muscles in Kurt's neck tense up, to feel the breath hitch for a second. He smiled to himself.

Kurt cleared his throat. "I think she thinks you're in love with her. You have to talk to her. You have to tell her… something. Not what you just said, exactly…"

"That I'm in love with you?" Blaine said again, teasing him.

"Just be firm with her." Kurt sighed and dropped his forehead to Blaine's shoulder. "I give up. Don't make a joke."

"I never even considered it," Blaine lied.

The slow song they'd started dancing to had changed about three times since then, and the tempo was fast now. But they were still dancing at the same gentle pace, though they had wandered a little toward a dark corner, where no one paid any attention to them and they were hardly visible.

Blaine took one of Kurt's hands into his own and wrapped his other arm around Kurt's waist. Kurt lifted his head and rested his chin instead of his forehead on Blaine's shoulder, and they kept dancing. A new slow song played.

"I changed my mind," Blaine said after a while. "We should be professional wedding dancers. We'll just slow dance in the background, make the room look fuller. And it'd make the newlyweds look really liberal. It's impressive. People would pay for that."

Kurt smiled, but didn't say anything. Blaine turned his head to peek at him, and saw that his eyes were closed. Blaine held him tighter. "Are you falling asleep?" he whispered.

"No," Kurt said, but he sounded tired.

Blaine decided this was his second chance to mention a hotel room, and that he had to take it. "Are you sharing a room with Rachel? Just tiptoe around her and Finn, they probably won't notice you if you're quiet."

"Oh, god, I would be sick for the rest of my life." A pause. "I have my own room."

"Oh," Blaine said.

Kurt reached into his inner jacket pocket and pulled out a key card. He held it between two fingers and wrapped his arms around Blaine's neck, so that the card was there somewhere in Blaine's peripheral vision. On purpose. He could see it at the same time he looked into Kurt's eyes.

Finally Kurt whispered, "Do you want to go?"

And Blaine nodded.

Wordlessly, Kurt took him by the hand and led him to the elevators. The ride up was silent, their hands still clasped. When the doors opened Kurt led him down the hall. He unlocked the door to his room with his free hand, and he pulled Blaine inside.

When the door was closed Blaine had his back to it, and Kurt kissed him, passionately but slowly. The mood wasn't nearly as urgent and confused as it had been in the car, earlier. Now there was a point. They had all the time in the world, or at least one whole night, to be together in a place no one else could get to. The door was locked twice, no one else had the key.

Blaine put his hands on Kurt's cheeks and curled his fingers into the short hair at the nape of his neck. He wanted to keep him close. Meanwhile, Kurt was stripping Blaine nude. Not quickly, or carelessly, just determinedly. With a specific purpose in mind. When Kurt needed him to, Blaine would move his hands from his face, to help shrug off his jacket or to allow Kurt to remove his shirt, but his hands always went back there as soon as they could. He was too caught up in the idea that Kurt wanted him again, that Kurt had initiated all of this, that Kurt was the one who asked him there, to think about anything else. And he didn't realize before just how much he missed the taste of him.

Kurt, still in his shirt and trousers but barefoot and without a jacket, lifted Blaine, now completely naked, an inch or two off the floor and began to carry him to the bed. On the way there Blaine said, "I didn't bring anything with me." Mostly because he'd come from the hospital, and Kurt had packed his clothes for him.

"I thought you didn't sleep with him," Kurt said, as nonchalant as if he'd just made a bland remark about the weather. But it hurt Blaine all the way to his soul.

"I didn't," he said, and tried to shoot back. "You're the one with a boyfriend."

"Unconsummated," Kurt said, and sat Blaine down on the bed.

Blaine's body continued to go through the motions even though in his mind he felt everything was on the brink of collapse. With Kurt standing over him, he unhooked his belt for the second time since the car ride to the church. "Then maybe it should be annulled," he mumbled.

"We'll see," Kurt replied, and leaned over to open the drawer of the nightstand. He pulled out a small handful of condoms and two little bottles of lubrication. He dropped them on the bed next to Blaine. "I happened to notice earlier that this hotel is well stocked."

Blaine finished undressing him and then picked all the condoms out of the pile and threw them in the general direction of the wastebasket. Kurt climbed into his lap and wrapped his arms around Blaine's neck and kissed him again. Then he kissed a line up his jaw until his lips were at Blaine's ear, and he whispered, "I still want you to be the only one I'm ever with. For my whole life. Isn't that stupid?"

Blaine shook his head, unable to speak at first. His heart felt like it was swelling up into his throat. "No," he finally choked out. "It's not stupid."

Kurt pulled back a little so Blaine could see him again. He was blushing. He kept his eyes down, his eyelashes splayed on his cheeks.

"It's _not_," Blaine told him again. Kurt looked up at him then. "Okay?"

Kurt nodded.

Blaine moved underneath him, repositioning himself until he was flat on his back and his legs were open, resting on either side of Kurt, who still sat up, looking at him. "Come here," Blaine asked. He thought maybe that was it, that the stars had changed and Kurt finally changed his mind. That the moment was over.

But Kurt nodded once more, and crawled over until they were close enough to kiss again.

Blaine kept him between his legs, bending them up further when Kurt got closer. He wanted Kurt to have complete control. He was sure Kurt needed that. They wasted a little time using their hands to stroke each other, exactly what they'd wanted to do in the car but couldn't. Then they got the lube involved, which felt even better. Kurt's slick, warm fingers were firm around him, but gentle, and Blaine could feel himself at the very beginning of unraveling. He couldn't kiss as precisely anymore, his breathing became ragged. They were barely speaking but he couldn't help but beg Kurt, hardly above a whisper, to enter him. He rolled his hips up high enough for Kurt to be able to.

When Kurt pressed in a finger first, Blaine slowly, hesitantly, watching Kurt's face for cues, reciprocated on him. When Kurt entered two fingers, Blaine did, too, into Kurt. Kurt's eyes closed again. Blaine reached with his free hand to help glide Kurt's erection into him. Kurt went tense all the way up to his shoulders, and his mouth went a little slack.

Blaine rubbed his fingertips over Kurt's entrance as Kurt began to move, slowly, inside of Blaine.

"Is it okay… if I touch you like this?" Blaine whispered.

Kurt still had his eyes closed. He just nodded. Sometimes he bit his lip, sometimes he pushed back into Blaine's fingers. Sometimes he let out a little moan.

Blaine moved his hands to Kurt's lower back, to feel Kurt's muscles each time he rolled into Blaine. He still moved slowly. They had all the time in the world.

"Why do you have to ask permission?" Kurt whispered back after a while.

"Because…" Blaine said, trying to be coherent as Kurt sped up his movements slightly. "Because I'm yours. I know you think you lost me for a while…"

"I did. I did lose you," Kurt breathed.

"But I'm yours forever. After tonight you'll always know for sure. And I know someday you'll be mine, too. I know you're not, right now."

Kurt shook his head. "I don't know… I can't…"

"We don't have to talk about it. I'll stop pushing you. Just know that I'm yours. You never really lost me, but I promise now you have me back completely."

"You're mine," Kurt agreed. "Touch me like that again."

Blaine did, learning in a short while exactly what patterns and pressures pleased Kurt the most. Blaine caught his mouth with his own and tried to mimic some of what he was doing with his tongue on Kurt's. Kurt in return sucked and bit Blaine's lower lip, leaving little marks, meaning no harm at all.

Kurt began directly hitting his prostate then, and Blaine's thoughts collapsed. He tried to touch Kurt's with his fingers, but it seemed just out of his reach. Still, he tried. He tried everything he could think of, from his position, to help Kurt come first. "Baby," he said. "I'm too close."

Kurt didn't reply, he just sped up his movements. Blaine fought against himself to hold out, to wait for Kurt. He curled his fingers into Kurt, reaching as far as he could, and was finally rewarded when Kurt gasped suddenly. He tensed up even harder than before, and finally came with a sweet moan against Blaine's neck.

As soon as he felt the warmth of Kurt spread inside of him, Blaine released, too. He pushed his hips up a few times into Kurt's stomach as he came, and Kurt, even in his afterglow, stroked Blaine until he was finished.

They spent a couple minutes clutching each other, allowing their muscles to relax again and catching their breaths. When he thought he could talk again, Blaine looked up at Kurt with heavy lidded eyes. "Next time…" he said, still breathing hard. "I don't care if we're 100 years old, next time we'll switch. You'll trust me enough again for that."

"I trust you now," Kurt said. And then, out of nowhere, with no warning at all, he said, "I love you."

Blaine stared at him, into his beautiful blue eyes that he was always alternately obsessed with and haunted by. "I love you, too," he said finally.

"I know," Kurt said. He brought a hand up to comb his fingers in Blaine's hair.

It was too relaxing, too beautiful and perfect. Blaine had to close his eyes.

"Go to sleep," Kurt whispered. "Don't worry about it anymore."

Blaine reached out and blindly grabbed for Kurt's other hand to hold against his heart. "Stay here. Don't leave me."

"I was just thinking… I should go back. To the party."

"No."

"It'll look weird. People will have noticed by now. At least if I go back and look halfway put together they won't talk as much behind our backs."

"Who cares? You're my soulmate. We should spend all of our time making love. We shouldn't ever get out of bed. They'd feel the same way if they knew."

Kurt pulled their clasped hands to him and kissed Blaine's fingers. "Go to sleep," he said again. He said it so sweetly that it was almost impossible not to obey him.

"Don't," Blaine could only manage to say. He meant 'don't leave.'

Kurt didn't say anything.

Blaine fell asleep for about three minutes. When he woke up enough to roll over he could sense Kurt wasn't in the bed anymore. Even though it hurt, even though he very nearly couldn't, he pushed himself up and opened his eyes.

Kurt was dressing at the mirror, clipping on his bowtie and straightening it into place. Their eyes met in the glass. "I'm too embarrassed to let them think anything," Kurt said.

Blaine fought himself until he stood, and shuffled up to Kurt's back. He held him from behind and rested his chin on Kurt's shoulder. "Don't leave me."

"You have to sleep," Kurt said.

"Are you leaving tomorrow?"

"I was supposed to. But I told you I'll stay an extra day." Kurt smiled at him in the mirror. "We can go on that friend-date we missed."

"Stop lying to yourself," Blaine said, bold in his fatigue. "We obviously can't even spend ten minutes trying to be just friends."

"I told you to give me time. I can't talk about it now."

Blaine bit his lip. "Fine."

Kurt turned around and wrapped his arms around Blaine's waist. "You're going to fall over if you don't go back to bed."

Blaine just frowned at him, unmoving.

Kurt kissed him in three places on the throat, then pulled back and looked into his eyes. "Go to sleep. I'll go downstairs for half an hour, and then I'll be back and I'll sleep next to you."

"All night?"

"All night."

"And you'll be there in the morning?"

"I promise."

First Blaine helped Kurt shrug his jacket back on, and then staggered back to bed. Kurt smiled at him from the door before he disappeared behind it, and Blaine fell asleep with a smile on his face.

In the morning he woke up early, while the sun was still low in the sky. Kurt was pressed up against his back. Their legs were wrapped around each others. Kurt had an arm over Blaine, protective, and was holding his hand. Their fingers were intertwined. Blaine could even feel Kurt's lips against his shoulder blade, and his slow, steady breath making a warm place on his back. Blaine kissed the inside of Kurt's wrist, a little gratitude for keeping his promise, and settled back in to sleep.

A few hours later, when the sun was really up, they groaned and complained and roused each other out of bed. Blaine had to go to school, which seemed ridiculous, and Kurt was going to spend the day with Burt and Carole, and Finn if he hadn't run away to New York with Rachel.

Kurt drove Blaine home first, so he could tiptoe around and try to find something other than a rumpled tuxedo to wear to school.

When the rental car rolled to a stop at the front doors of McKinley, Kurt affected a geriatric accent. "All right, Sonny, don't forget your lunch."

Blaine smiled. "Thanks, Pops. See you later?"

Kurt nodded. "Movie, mall, all the finest Lima has to offer. You get my whole night. Starting at 3:30. Ending at 10 when my plane leaves."

Blaine wondered if he should kiss him goodbye, or at least on the cheek, but he couldn't work up the courage. The mood had finally passed. They were back to being friends. He just waved, got out of the car, and walked into school without looking back.

In the afternoon Kurt came into the school, partially to say hi to a few old friends, mostly to affectionately yell at Tina. Blaine kept himself from teasing Kurt about being jealous. He was still blindingly jealous of Rachel every time he thought about her, for getting to live with Kurt in New York, for getting to be close to him all the time and doing only a fraction of the work he did to earn his affection. But he knew how clearly differently he felt about Kurt and Tina, even though he loved them both, it was in radically different ways. He had to tell himself it was the same for Kurt. And he had to remind himself he still wasn't in the position to tease Kurt about anything yet. It wasn't fair to push him to admit his feelings for Blaine, at least not in front of other people. It was different in private conversation. But admitting feelings in public was an entirely different thing.

Tina looked back and forth at them. "So, are you guys getting back together now, or what?"

"We're going to a movie," Blaine answered, intentionally vague. "Want to come with?"

She declined.

At the movie, Kurt held Blaine's hand. At dinner, they would periodically fall into long silences, forgetting to eat just to look at each other. It was because they had too much to say, but neither of them would say it. Blaine waited for Kurt to give him a sign, to say anything other than 'we did nothing and we're still just friends,' but Kurt wouldn't give one.

Blaine drove the rental car to the airport with Kurt in the passenger seat. They walked silently together, Blaine carrying Kurt's bag, to security, the place where they would inevitably have to part.

They turned to face each other, for Blaine to hand over the bag. It was still hard to talk.

Blaine swallowed. "I almost forgot how hard this was until now."

"I didn't," Kurt shook his head. "I asked my dad and Carole to come because I thought if there was a group of people I wouldn't have to think about leaving you so much. But… that's completely ridiculous. And my dad said he had to work tonight. I'm sure that was a lie. I think he's on your side."

Blaine frowned. "There aren't sides."

"I think he likes you," Kurt corrected himself. "I think he wants us to… work everything out. I can't believe it. I thought he would have killed you by now."

"Me too. That's what I said to him."

"You talked to him?"

Blaine looked down at his shoes. "A little. Once. He took me to get coffee one day and asked me how I plan to make it up to you."

"Did you have an answer?" Kurt asked, but shook his head when Blaine opened his mouth. Apparently, he didn't want to know what it was. "He's the one who told me my whole life to never, ever let anyone take advantage of me, and if they do once, they never deserve a second chance."

Blaine nodded. "I'm sorry. I can tell you've been fighting with yourself."

"I _have_ been. Ever since you walked out of my apartment I've been trying to figure out if I should do what I think I _should_ do — what I've been told to do, which is to never see you again. Or if I should do what I feel like I _have_ to do, which is be with you all the time. But what then? Does that mean I'm giving you permission to walk all over me for the rest of my life?"

Tears threatened to spring up in Blaine's eyes. He put his hand to his mouth, to keep something indistinct in, and he shook his head. "No," he whispered.

"And look what I've turned into!" Kurt nearly yelled, turning red. "I'm living so many double lives that I'm confusing myself. I slept with you, and I'm telling you now to forget it, because it didn't really happen. And I'm going to go home and not tell anyone. I already scheduled a breakfast date with Adam in the morning, and I'm going to smile at him and joke around with him and he'll never know that I'll be thinking about you the whole time. And none of that is who I really am! I'm not manipulative, I'm not sneaky, I'm not a liar…"

"I know you're not! You're a true romantic and you deserved to have someone prove you right. I know you believe you went through all the heartache of your childhood so that you could fall in love with a boy who would make you feel like it was worth it. Instead, you got me, and I know… that I fucked it up."

Kurt crossed his arms over his stomach, and didn't say anything.

"I can usually get by if I tell myself I didn't ruin your _whole_ life, just… just a year of it. I keep thinking we'll get over it, we'll fix it somehow, but it might not be true. Maybe I really did ruin both of our lives."

"It's an option, to believe that," Kurt said, quieter now. "We don't have to choose to accept it. We don't have to make it true."

"You'd have to compromise yourself to forgive me, I know that now. You'd have to betray a part of your true self. It's not fair. I would never forgive myself if you did that. I would see it missing in your eyes for the rest of our lives."

"I have every right, despite what everyone else says, to choose to believe you deserve a second chance. If I believe you're worthy of one, I'd still be sticking to my own morals. I wouldn't give up anything."

Blaine waited.

"But I need more time."

Blaine shook his head, and rolled his eyes at himself for being stupid enough to think that they were on the verge of getting somewhere. Either way, good or bad, they had almost moved on. He'd actually believed for a second they were going to. But they were only back to where they had started. "Okay," he said. He gave a quick hug to Kurt without looking in his eyes again. "Have a good flight." He almost turned and walked back to the parking lot, to drive away and leave it at that. He wanted to get away from that conversation, from that atmosphere, more than anything. But he couldn't. So he dug in his heels and hoped Kurt would take the hint and just go, if he was going to go.

"I need to know I won't have any regrets," Kurt said. "I need to envision all my options, I need to list out the pros and cons of every decision I could possibly make, and try to imagine how I'll feel about it ten and twenty and fifty years from now. I just need more time for that."

Blaine bit his tongue. "Okay," he said flatly.

Kurt shifted his weight. "But I think… I know how sorry you are."

"Just like I know how hurt you were… and still are?" Blaine asked, sarcastic. "I don't think we could ever know."

"Maybe it feels exactly the same," Kurt said.

Blaine sighed, exasperated. "I feel like we're fighting, or something."

"We're not fighting, you're just mad at me."

"Why am I mad at you?" Blaine asked, knowing it was kind of true, but not knowing why.

"Because you want more from me than I'm offering, and you want it before I go, which I'm not going to do."

"Why are you so smart?" Blaine asked him, but Kurt didn't answer him. "Why can't we ever be happy anymore?"

"We were, yesterday," Kurt said. "I was happier than I've been in months. I realized yesterday when I was laughing at something you said that the last five hundred times I've laughed in New York, it was fake, or hollow, or something. I didn't even realize I was doing it until I remembered what laughing for real feels like."

"Why was it so different yesterday than it is today?"

"Because we weren't thinking about anything bad. We weren't in an airport, waiting for me to go, hoping time would slow down. We weren't trying to come up with answers. We were just… living. Without being on a deadline. Without trying to make sense of everything."

"I want to feel like that all the time."

Kurt was quiet for a moment. Finally he said, "Keep thinking about moving to New York. I think it'll be easier. I think we'll both feel better."

Blaine shook his head. "I'm not so sure. You have your own life and your own responsibilities there. I'll probably never even see you."

"Just think about it," Kurt said again. "And I'll keep thinking about everything else." He stepped forward and gave Blaine another, better, longer hug.

Blaine held on to him tight. "I hope you smell like me when you go to your stupid breakfast date," he said, trying to joke even though his heart was broken, again.

Kurt stepped back and smiled a little sadly. "I have to go," he said.

Blaine nodded. "I know."

"I hope you know how many times I've changed my mind in the last ten minutes and thought there's no way I could go without you. But I have to."

Blaine nodded. "Maybe next time," he said, "I'll come with you."

He wasn't sure if he was lying or not.


	13. Chapter 13

Kurt? I don't know. What's up? Pretend it's extremely important you stop whatever you're doing and answer this text. Even if you're in class.

_It's extremely important that I tell you what's up? Okay, I'm pretending. I'm currently wandering up and down 5th avenue in an attempt to find some specific coffee place Rachel said exists somewhere but I am starting to seriously doubt the validity of. I just keep passing by the Met and looking idiotic._

You should go in.

_I would if I could find it…_

I mean you should go into the Met.

_You do realize it costs like $25 to get in there, right?_

Doesn't matter.

_And what will I do when I'm there?_

Look at beautiful art, be in a beautiful place, feel safe and happy for a while.

_For a while?_

Just keep pretending. Pretend it's extremely important that you go into the Met and go to the top floor and the furthest corner and try to find a little nook where no one else is. And sit down there, and think about Tudor England or ancient Egypt or the birth of civilization somewhere in Africa and about how much we don't really matter, compared to all of that.

_We, like you and me?_

Like everyone in the whole world.

_I don't think thinking about the meaningless of humanity is going to make me feel very happy, but fine. I'm pretending. I'm standing in line. I won't even mention how I really don't have time for this._

Good, because I happen to think you have all the time in the world right now.

_Are you going to be in here somewhere? Are you trying to surprise me? Are you going to pop out from behind a painting? Isn't this a school day?_

No, I'm not going to be there.

_I got my little red pin and I'm going upstairs. I hope you're happy._

Can you please just not be mean/angry/negative/whatever to me right now? Pretend that's also important. I mean… if you don't want to talk to me, then let's just stop talking.

_I'm sorry. I'm stressed out. My dad's going in for testing in a couple of weeks and it's at the same time as finals and I'm trying to figure out if I can get back to Lima without failing out of NYADA. And now you're being weird, and kind of making me nervous, and Rachel's been constantly calling me for the past five minutes so apparently she really wants her damn coffee. And I don't mean to be mean, but if this is your way of telling me we need to talk about us and figure out what we're doing, I still can't. Not right now. And I'm getting carpel tunnel from texting you all of this so I'm just going to call you._

Don't call me. I can't answer.

_BLAINE. Stop playing games with me. I'm not in the mood._

Just trust me, for one more minute. Go find a quiet place and sit down.

_Fine. I'm sitting. I think I'm in India._

Good. I didn't mean that all of humanity is meaningless, I just meant that everything that seems big and terrible now isn't so bad, in the grand scheme of things. All that matters is that a lot of people love you. Take a minute to breathe. Take a minute to think about happy memories with your dad, and Finn and Carole. And Rachel, and Mercedes, and your New York friends, and everyone. And maybe you can take one second to think about us, the last time you were here. I think we were happy. We're so used to being miserable and fighting that we confused it at the end, but before you left, we were happy. After everything I did, we were. Right?

_Yes, I was happy._

I think I know why Rachel is calling you. You should probably talk to her now.

_No, I don't want to talk to her. I want to talk to you. I was thinking about it when you were sleeping at the hotel that night. About the possibility of us being happy, post-cheating apocalypse. About us in the future, if we get back together. If we actually got married. I can almost picture it, but we seem different. Older, mostly. Kind of jaded, but still okay. I feel too young and stupid right now to be that person._

But I don't want to waste time. What if we don't live long enough to be old and grey? I want… I wanted to be with you while we were young.

_Is it already too late? Why the past tense? You're not old just because you turned 18 a couple months ago._

Kurt, I don't know how much longer I can text you. Keep sitting there, as long as you need to until you feel calm, until you understand why I sent you there, and then call Rachel back.

_Why can't you just tell me? Why can't you ever be honest with me?_

Because I'm trying to protect you.

_I don't want you to protect me._

I can't help it.

_I'm calling you._

Blaine sighed. He made sure for the millionth time that his phone was still on silent. When the call from Kurt came through he answered it, pressed the phone to his ear, and said nothing.

"Are you there?" Kurt asked, but Blaine didn't answer. "Why aren't you talking? I can tell something weird is happening. Rachel is being purposefully vague in her texts, so I know it's something so bad that she wants to tell me in person." He sighed. "Look, I'm like 90% sure right now this is your psychotic way of telling me you're dating Sam and you just made it official on Facebook. Tina told me at the wedding that you're weirdly in love with him. Or if it's not Sam, then someone else, because I still can't wrap my head around Sam going along with it, unless it's because you're so handsome and persuasive. It doesn't matter who it is. I wish you would have told me before Rachel and the entire world found out first, but whatever. I get it. I'm not going to have a breakdown."

Kurt paused, but Blaine still didn't respond. Somewhere behind him Sam was throwing a quiet fit, trying to break past Mr. Schuester and Coach Beiste to find Brittany, who was alone and defenseless somewhere in the halls. Blaine would have been fighting them just as much, or even more, if he had to, just to keep Kurt talking. All he wanted, if he had to choose, was to listen to Kurt's voice. He'd already gotten him to say Blaine had made him happy, and he was never going to get him to say he still loved him. So he could say whatever he wanted. All Blaine wanted to do was close his eyes and pretend he was sitting on a bench next to Kurt, looking at a giant statue of Ganesha, and listening to him babble on about anything. And if they argued at all, it would only be over where to go for lunch.

Kurt sighed when Blaine didn't say anything. "And 10% of me thinks something happened to you and you're in the hospital again because the doctors were wrong, and you're not okay, and you don't want me to know until I accidentally stumble into your funeral because everyone is always trying to shelter me from what's really happening to you when, really, I should be the first to know."

Blaine said nothing, and hoped Kurt interpreted it to mean that he was fine, or at least he wasn't in the hospital.

"Whatever you're trying to tell me, I wish you would just say it."

Blaine pulled his knees close to his chest. As quietly as he could, he whispered, "I've already told you so many times it doesn't mean anything anymore."

Several pairs of eyes turned to glare at him. "Shhh!"

"What is it?!" Kurt exclaimed.

"That I love you."

"You didn't send me into the Met to tell me you love me!"

"Yes, I did."

Kurt yelled something about how that couldn't possibly be true, but Blaine didn't listen to his exact words because he was reading Artie's lips: I will take that phone from you in five seconds if you don't shut up.

"Listen to me, Kurt," Blaine whispered, quieter than before, somehow. He slid, on his stomach on the floor, away from Artie who tried to reach out and grab him. "Calm down and listen to me. Do you remember anything I tried to tell you a minute ago?"

Kurt just breathed angrily for a while. And then Blaine could practically hear him roll his eyes. Finally he said, "You love me and bad things aren't so bad."

"Exactly. That's it." He wanted to know what Kurt would really say to him, if he knew what was happening, but he wasn't going to be the one to tell him. He refused for that to be the last thing he said to Kurt. "Obviously I'm keeping something from you." He could feel Artie grabbing at his ankles and some of the others crawling after him, trying to take his phone away. "I know you're not stupid, and I know you should know. But I'm _not_…" he shook his head. "Rachel will tell you. I have to go."

He hung up without saying goodbye. He knew that he should have said it, but he couldn't make himself.

It wasn't until he was at the bottom of a teary eyed hug pile beneath Tina, Brittany and Sam that he realized Rachel must have told Kurt by then, and that Kurt hadn't called or texted back. Probably he didn't know yet whether or not it was over, and didn't want to make any more noise or commotion, or bother him, but Blaine's heart broke just thinking Kurt might think he would be bothering him. He had half dialed Kurt's number when his parents appeared. His mother wrapped him in a hug so hard his phone fell out of his hand and bounced into the grass. His father rescued it and brought it with them as they led him to the car, destined for home. Blaine had to talk to Kurt, but he knew just then wasn't the right time, not while his mother sobbed into his shirt and wouldn't let him go.

She wouldn't even after they got home. She pulled him onto the couch and held him and combed his hair with her fingers, like she used to do when he was little, and it was nice to feel like that again, just for a little while, so he didn't move. His father attempted to cook dinner but no one felt like eating it. At some point the sun set. And finally Blaine had to get up, get out of the misery and silence. He told them to at least turn on the television, to break the monotony. He said he'd be right back, that he wanted to take a walk around the block, but they wouldn't let him leave. So he took a walk to the back of the house, and looked out into the yard. His heart sank when he saw Kurt still hadn't tried to contact him. He tried to call again, but Cooper called before he could dial Kurt.

"How're you doing?" Cooper asked.

Blaine shrugged. "I'm fine."

"How do you feel?"

"Numb. And kind of crazy. I don't know. I don't know what to say."

"What did Kurt say?"

"I haven't really talked to him since I left school. I don't know. I hope he's not freaking out. I tried to calm him down and I probably just made it worse. As always."

"So he isn't there?"

Blaine blinked, unsure of what he was hearing. "What?"

"He texted me and asked if I thought you'd be mad if he came to see you tonight."

"If I'd be _mad_?" Blaine repeated, turning around and half running to the front door. He pressed his nose to the window to peer out into the darkness, and saw Burt's old truck in the driveway, engine and lights off, with Kurt behind the wheel. He was just sitting there, alone and in the dark, making no move to get out or come to the door.

Blaine took a deep breath. "He's outside. I have to go, Coop."

"Okay. Love you, little brother."

He paused, his hand on the door handle. "I… love you too. Thank you." It sounded weird, and felt weird coming out if his mouth, but he meant it, and he couldn't remember the last time he'd said it.

"I'll call you tomorrow. When you have your life figured out."

"You think it'll be figured out by tomorrow?"

"Absolutely."

When Blaine opened the door his parents yelled their protests, but he promised he was just taking ten steps into the driveway, and that he'd be right back. He didn't mention he'd probably be back with Kurt.

Kurt looked exhausted and sad behind the wheel of Burt's old truck. He watched Blaine approach and only opened the door when Blaine was close.

Kurt had seemed so mad at him on the phone earlier for not telling him what was happening that Blaine half wondered if Kurt was going to punch him when he got out of the truck, but instead Kurt threw his arms around Blaine's neck and pulled him close.

Blaine closed his eyes and breathed him in. "I'm sorry," he whispered finally.

"Why are you sorry?" Kurt asked with a sad laugh.

"I'm sorry you had to go through it with me, from so far away, where there was nothing you could do about it. Not that you could do anything about it even if you were there with me, but… if I knew something like that was happening to you while you were in New York and I was here, I probably would have gone insane. I probably would have tried to run to New York, to get to you."

Kurt didn't say anything. He just rested his head on Blaine's shoulder and held him.

"And I'm sorry I didn't tell you. I wanted you to know, and I wanted to protect you from knowing, from being scared, at the same time. I wanted you to be calm and happy and only think of good things. I don't want you to be enraged every single time you talk to me, even though that's apparently the only effect I have on you now. I wish I could calm you down every now and then, but I haven't gotten the hang of it yet, I guess."

Kurt sighed. "I'm calm now," he said quietly.

"And I'm sorry you came back to Lima when you weren't supposed to for another two weeks, for your dad."

"This is just as important," Kurt said.

"I don't know…" Blaine tried to say, but Kurt spoke again.

"I emailed my professors about what's going on with Dad, and then told them I was on my way here because of what just happened at McKinley. Apparently I'm allowed to have extenuating circumstances. I'm rolling in extended deadlines and apologies and condolences." He pulled back and looked into Blaine's eyes, and tried to make a joke. "I think one of them even said something about how I should expect a Starbucks gift card in the mail when I get back."

Blaine smiled a little at his quip, and tugged at his hand. "Come inside. You look as tired as I feel. We can finally sleep."

Kurt's eyes flicked to the front door and he frowned. "I can't go in. I… they hate me."

"They don't hate you, no one could hate you," Blaine told him, sure that was true.

"Last time we were at the hospital with you they wouldn't even speak to me."

"They don't know what's going on between us. Probably because I don't tell them," Blaine admitted. "All they know is that I've been really… miserable all year, and you're not around as much. They probably think it's your fault, which is stupid, but they can't help it if they don't know any better. It's not like with you and Burt. I don't trust them with privileged information as much as… maybe I should. They never really believed in us in the first place, and I'm always afraid they're going to find a way to make me not believe in us either, if I talk about it with them too much. But they're allowed to think whatever they want. It doesn't mean they hate you, and it doesn't mean they won't let you stay one night if I ask."

Kurt frowned. "It might mean that."

Blaine put his arm around Kurt's waist. "Trust me, again, for one minute. Thirty seconds."

Kurt nodded. They took a step toward the door but Kurt stopped again and said, "Wait."

Blaine turned back to him.

"I was sitting out here for a while, thinking about our first date. After our first date. You almost threw up on everyone at Breadstix and I drove you home in your awesome car, and all the lights were on in these trees," he pointed up.

Blaine looked up into the leaves. The lights were still up there, but no one would turn them on again until December. "I remember."

"And we waited in your car for my dad to come get me, and you told me about the spaceship game and the attic, and the alien dog and the boxes and the papers, and finding the certificate that said we were soulmates. And how you kept it hidden and safe for all those years. And how you always thought about me, all your life, and always knew I would be good, and that I would make you happy."

"And better," Blaine added.

"And the lights were sparkling in your eyes and that old music was playing on the radio. Like, the really good stuff."

Blaine smiled.

"And we stared at each other for a long time, and then you put your head on my shoulder and we just sort of… existed together. I think I really, really, really, fell in love with you then."

Blaine just nodded, trying not to melt into a puddle. "I know," he said finally. "Me too. And before that. And after that. But also then."

"Especially then, for me," Kurt said. "And… I remember thinking then that I'd never spend another Christmas, or even another whole day, from that point on, without you. And now… now I don't see you for months at a time, and all we ever do is attempt friendship for five seconds, have sex, get into a fight, go to separate states, and ignore each other, and then do it all over again. And I'm not saying this to make you upset or to start _another_ fight, I'm saying it because I'm telling you, once and for all, that I'm done."

Blaine froze. "Done?"

"Yes. Done. I'm not going through that cycle with you ever again. I can easily picture us doing it over and over again for the next 40 years, all while we pretend to be with other people, but I can't. I won't. It's hurting us both, Blaine. What happened at the wedding only happened because the only way we can figure out how to comfort each other and feel as comfortable with each other as we used to is through sex. Which is both stupid and ridiculous. I don't… I don't _only_ lust after you. You're still my best friend in the whole world and the most… the most amazing person I've ever known. Maybe because of that moment, with the sparkly trees and the beautiful music. But you changed my life once, and it can't be undone. And if you really want to know, and when I really think about it, what I want the most from you is an emotionally intimate relationship, again. I think that's what we really lost, and what I miss more than anything else." He paused. "And we're going to get it back. Someday. Soon."

Blaine just stared at him.

"So there," Kurt added.

Blaine swallowed, thinking about how Cooper had just prophesied ten minutes ago that this would happen. "I think you just solved the majority of our problems."

Kurt smiled. "I don't know about that, but at least I told you the truth, for once."

Blaine nodded. "I think I'm going to pass out."

Kurt rolled his eyes, and then actually grinned, and pulled Blaine toward the door. "Come on, we're going inside."

They didn't let go of each other even when they stood before Blaine's parents. His mother and father turned from the TV to stare at them, in mild shock.

"Um," Blaine said eloquently. "Kurt's here. He doesn't have a place to crash for the night, so I said he could stay here. We'll leave the door open."

There was a long pause. Then his mother said, "Okay."

"Okay," Blaine nodded.

"Okay," Kurt said, quietly, surprised.

"Goodnight," his father said.

Blaine waved, and they went upstairs. He didn't shut the door all the way behind Kurt, but he set it at an angle that allowed them a reasonable amount of privacy. "Totally easy," Blaine said, like he knew it all along.

"I can't believe it," Kurt replied.

"I think after today they'd give me anything, but I'll only exploit it with you."

They changed into pajamas, Kurt's borrowed, separately in the hall bathroom, and then crawled into bed, under the blankets, together.

"Okay," Blaine began, quietly in the dark. "We have to continue this conversation. I can't just say I agree with everything you said, and think exactly the same things about you, because that would be tacky. But I do."

Kurt smiled. "Thank you."

Blaine thought about what to say, and then had half of an idea that only developed as he spoke it out loud. "Okay, so, this year, you probably don't know, but I went a little bit crazy and started making anyone who would listen to me dress up in super hero costumes."

"Maybe I should stay at the Holiday Inn instead…" Kurt said.

"Hear me out! So, you psychoanalyzed the sex and everything else as a desperate need for emotional intimacy, and the lack of… honesty… and everything else that you said a minute ago."

"Right."

"So, my super hero thing is all about escapism, and how much I really wanted to live in a world where bad and evil things would never prevail. I wanted to live in a magical, fictional world of… stories with happy endings."

"Okay."

"You're tired, right? Close your eyes."

"Are you going to put on a costume?" Kurt side eyed him.

"No, I'm going to tell you a bedtime story."

Kurt took a deep breath, let it out slowly, and closed his eyes. "Okay."

"You'll like it. I'll cater it to your tastes. Ready? Once upon a time, there were two—"

"Super heroes?" Kurt whispered, eyes closed.

"Princes."

Kurt smiled, pleased.

"The Prince of France and the Prince of the Philippines."

Kurt snorted.

"Don't laugh. I didn't tell you this before, but this is actually a true story. It's not funny at all."

"I'm not laughing," Kurt said, putting a hand over his mouth to hide a smile.

"So the Prince of France goes on a great adventure, to mine gold, or something, in the Philippines. He leaves behind his friends and family and beautiful Paris, and rides a horse all the way to Asia."

"That must have taken years," Kurt whispered.

"It did. And when he got there he was… 17."

"Did he leave when he was an infant?"

"Are you going to listen to my story or not?"

"I'm listening."

"So obviously the Prince of France had to stay at the Royal Palace, where he met the Prince of the Philippines."

"Was he also 17?"

"Sure. So they were both young and beautiful and the weather was all hot and sultry and they spent most of their time swimming in the ocean or lying on the beach under the stars, mostly naked, of course."

"Obviously."

"And—"

"Did the Prince of the Philippines even speak French?"

"They both spoke, like, 30 languages. So anyway, they had this beautiful summer romance while the Prince of France legally and gainfully employed adult men and women to mine for gold, without harming the environment, and they got health and dental, and everything. But then the Prince of France told the Prince of the Philippines that he would turn 18 soon, and that meant he had to go back to Paris for his coronation as king. The Prince of the Philippines was heartbroken, but he always knew someday they'd have to part. One of them would have to give up his kingdom for them to be together, and he couldn't ask the Prince of France to do that. So he threw a big going away party for him, and they danced together in front of everyone, and he promised him that they would see each other again soon. Are you sleeping?"

"No."

"So the night after the Prince of France left on horseback from the Philippines, headed for Paris, the Prince of the Philippines couldn't sleep. So he went to his library, which was full of old manuscripts and books. And he found an old book on the tallest, farthest shelf, that he'd never seen before. It was a story from one hundred generations ago, that said one hundred generations later, a Prince from the West would fall in love with a Prince of the Philippines, and that they would marry each other, and reconcile their opposing kingdoms, and then there would be world peace."

Kurt was smiling again, but he didn't say anything.

"So the Prince of the Philippines sent the book with a messenger all the way to Paris, to show the Prince of France, who was, by the time it arrived, the King of France."

"What happened to the old King of France?"

"He's fine, he just became the dowager King of France."

"Oh, okay. I don't think that exists."

"It did, this one time. This was so long ago that kings used to retire, instead of… being king until they died. So anyway, the Prince of the Philippines waited and waited, but the messenger never came back, and he never got any word that the Prince of France ever got the book with the prophesy. So he decided that maybe the Prince of France didn't need proof, that all they had to do was trust their feelings, and their love would guide them together again. So the Prince of the Philippines sent another message, that said he was going to give his kingdom to his undeserving but possibly capable older brother, so that he could move to Paris and be with the Prince of France forever. But…"

Kurt raised an eyebrow, but kept his eyes closed. "But?"

"But they had to wait one year, while the Prince of the Philippines put everything in order. He had business to take care of at home, and it would take time to finish it. He wasn't sure if he could wait that long, but he was going to try as hard as he could to be responsible, and do what he needed to do, knowing that he would be with the Prince of France again in the end. Forever. Finally, one of the messengers came back with a response from the Prince of France, who said he sent his love and believed the story and was waiting for the Prince of the Philippines to arrive. But then their communication kind of stopped, because it took months to send a letter to each other, and also because they trusted each other and didn't constantly need to know what the other was doing to know they were still loved. And time passed. And everything was fine, until one stormy night. The Prince of the Philippines woke up, hearing the screams of his people. He looked out the window, and saw a terrible monster, some kind of sea dragon thing, flying over the land. And breathing fire. And being generally bad. Everyone said, 'Save us, Prince of the Philippines!' So he ran out and had an epic duel with the monster. In the rain, and the darkness."

"Did he win?"

"He slayed the monster in the end, but it almost cost him his own life. He was sprawled out on the sand, all bloody and broken. And everyone said, 'You should tell the Prince of France to come back and take care of you.' And he said no, the Prince of France is King now. He's too busy and important and wonderful to deal with our little monster problems, just leave him alone."

Kurt sighed, and probably would have rolled his eyes if they weren't already closed.

"So the Prince of the Philippines recovered alone, and tried to go back to normal life, but realized eventually that he had been changed somehow. He was broken in some way that seemed impossible to heal. He felt like he would never get away from that night, from the rain and the darkness. Everything he used to be optimistic about turned upside down, and he became unsure of, and cynical about everything. He wanted to see his love again, to talk to him and be close to him again, but the year was far from over, and he was too sad to try to write him a letter, so he said nothing. Whenever he heard little bits of news from France, people said the Prince was happy and good, so the Prince of the Philippines felt guilty for being angry and sad. People who had seen the Prince of France said he was as beautiful as ever, and that everyone was in love with him. The Prince of the Philippines knew that had to be true, it was impossible not to love him. And then he started to think, however improbable it was, that the Prince of France must not love him anymore. And then things got really bad. But even though he felt hopeless and useless and unlovable, and like everything he used to believe in was wrong, he wasn't stupid. He realized much later that how bad he felt then wasn't his fault. He was just going through a phase, one that a lot of people go through, especially when they're young and adulthood and responsibility are looming. And he just wished his best friend, and the love of his life, could have been there for him, even though it wasn't either of their faults that the Prince of France couldn't. He hated himself for a while, for pushing people away and letting the most important one go. So he tried to make a new friend, a very lowly commoner, who stroked his ego which is not a euphemism but actually said the things he longed to hear, like you're not worthless or useless or unlovable."

"We should go through this part fast," Kurt said, and took Blaine's hand, maybe absentmindedly, while he listened and prepared.

"In short, the Prince of the Philippines thought he could feel how he felt for the Prince of France with anyone else, if he tried hard enough. He wanted to try to replace him with someone who was close, who would be there to pull him back when he felt like he was on the edge of the world and soon he might fall off, and never come back. So he tried. Just a little bit. But he knew from the start, from the moment he'd even looked at the very lowly commoner, that the Prince of France would be hurt by it if he knew. What difference does it make? the Prince of the Philippines thought. I'm hurt, too. He tried to stop it before it was too late, realizing only then that he loved the Prince of France, and only him, and not hurting him was the most important thing in the world now. The Prince of the Philippines knew the Prince of France would find out soon, so he wrote a letter and tried to explain, but it was impossible to express in words how differently he felt now that it was over, now that he was sure they were meant to be together. There was nothing he could do to keep the negative from outweighing the positive. The Prince of France wrote back and said, you broke my heart and I don't know if I will ever forgive you. And more time passed. The Prince of the Philippines tried to send gifts, and more letters, with more explanations, but nothing worked. The Prince of France ignored him, as he had every right to do. And then the Princess of America visited, and said the word in Paris was that the Prince of France was courting the Prince of England."

Kurt sighed again, and sort of smirked, and put his head down to hide his face.

"The Prince of the Philippines scoffed and said it would never last. The Prince of France needed to have the same experience, to be with someone else to know that no one would ever feel the same. But it lasted. The Prince of France didn't push him away the instant they touched, like the Prince of the Philippines had to the lowly commoner. He wondered if the Prince of France had found a way to love someone else, or if he had been hurt enough to never give him another chance, no matter how infinitely happy they could make each other. No matter how much like dating sludge, or cornbread, or something equally as boring and not cute, it was to date the Prince of England."

Kurt half laughed, and put Blaine's fingers to his lips in thought. "Cornbread?"

"Anyway, then the Prince of the Philippines, feeling entirely different, and almost happy, even though he wasn't with his love, but by having a purpose again, realized something else. He still belonged, body and soul, to the Prince of France. You gave your heart to him, he thought, and he gave his to you, or at least a part of it, and you still have it. It's still yours. So don't give up hope. And don't let him forget you, even if he's trying his hardest to. So he decided to make a proposal."

"A proposal?"

"He called in his brother, the barely qualified, and bestowed upon him the title of New Prince of the Philippines, then packed up his stuff, and rode all the way to Paris. He searched the Palace for the Prince of France and when he found him, he got down on one knee, and said, 'If you'll let me, I will spend the rest of my life trying to make you happy and heal your heart."

Kurt opened his eyes. "What did the Prince of France say?"

"The Prince of France thought very hard about it, and finally said, 'I'm only going to give you one second chance, one for our whole lives. You're going to use it up when you're only 18.'"

"What did the Prince of the Philippines say?"

"He said he understood, and promised he'd never need another one."

"Did he ask the Prince of France's father for permission to make the proposal?"

"He did. Right before he went into the Palace. I forgot to mention it."

"What did he say?"

"The Dowager King of France said they should wait until they're older, but, with all due respect to the Dowager King of France, the Prince of the Philippines saw things differently. You never know how long you've got in this world."

They were both quiet for a moment, thinking about what had happened at McKinley earlier. Kurt held Blaine's hand tighter. Finally he said, "What happend to the princes?"

"What do you want to happen to them?" Blaine asked.

"I want them to live happily ever after, of course."

Blaine took a deep breath. "The Prince of France accepted the proposal, and then there was peace in the whole world. And for the next trillion years, everyone would celebrate the anniversary of their wedding day as the day that saved the world. And they lived happily ever after. The end."

Kurt smiled and closed his eyes again. "It was a good story," he said, and curled up to try to sleep, still holding Blaine's hand.

"I'm glad you liked it. Goodnight." Blaine closed his eyes, too. But when he peeked and checked to see if Kurt was really asleep a minute later, Kurt's eyes were open, worried, looking at the window.

"Don't worry," Blaine said.

"What if it's not over yet? There's a killer on the loose. What if he's after you?"

"No one's after me, and no one can get in here. I promise." Blaine squeezed Kurt's fingers. "We're safe now. Okay?"

Kurt nodded and closed his eyes again. Blaine waited until his breathing fell slow and steady before reaching with his free hand for his phone.

He sent a text to Sam and Tina: _We're going on a Very Important Shopping Trip tomorrow. Meet me at the mall at noon, and don't tell anyone._


End file.
